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Media Lens does fantastic, if grim work, in describing the system we live in. We are insulated from other narratives other ideas, other peoples sufferings. How can a public become informed with no other sources to cross reference? You cannot triangulate with only one point. Media Lens, Al-Jazeera and other alternative news sources provide those points for those who have the resources to find out.
The Statistics of Western State Terror (click title for link to full article)
“Ten years later, the violent consequences of the invasion of Afghanistan are truly appalling. A Stop the War video, ‘What is the true cost of the Afghanistan war?’ details some of the appalling statistics:
9,300 Afghan civilians have been killed by International Security Assistance Forces, i.e. Nato.
380 British soldiers are dead.
£18 billion of UK taxpayer’s money has been spent.
The war is costing Britain £12 million per day. The same amount could employ 100,000 nurses (at £21,000 annually) and 150,000 care workers (£15,000).
A study by Brown University in the United States estimates an unimaginable combined sum of up to $4 trillion to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In Afghanistan, ‘cautious estimates’ of the total civilian death toll exceed 40,000 people, of which:
25.6% killed by ISAF forces.
15.4% killed by anti-government forces.
60% killed by poverty, disease and starvation.
In particular, the horrendous killing of Afghan children in US air strikes and night raids gets scant coverage, if any, before the Western media swiftly looks away.
There are now three million refugees from Afghanistan: 30.7% of the world’s total, exceeding the figures of 16.9% from Iraq, 7.7% from Somalia and 4.8% from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
74% of the British public want the occupation to end either ‘immediately’ or ‘soon’.
Very little of this reality made it into the largely uncritical coverage of the ten-year anniversary of the West’s aggression against Afghanistan.
In the conclusion to a new report for Stop the War, David Swanson provides a stunning example of the media’s systematic bias:
‘On August 6, 2011, numerous US media outlets reported “the deadliest day of the war” because 38 soldiers, including 30 U.S. troops, had been killed when their helicopter was shot down.
‘But compare that with the day of May 4, 2009, discussed in this report, on which 140 people, including 93 children, were killed in U.S. airstrikes. We are denying to each other through silence and misdirection every day that the children of Afghanistan exist. But their deaths are rising.’
But the deaths of Afghan children, and the suffering of the people of Afghanistan, are seemingly of little consequence for most Western journalists who would rather focus on the ‘progress’ and ‘achievements’ of the Nato ‘campaign’. “
Two talk shows, two very different levels of discourse.
The Late Late Show from Ireland.
Bill Mahr on HBO.
Draw your own conclusions, but one can see why one should be worried about the state of affairs on this side of the pond.
“Nothing is free.” Remember that golden nugget of advice given back when you were young? Of course you do, it made you wary of deals that seemed just perfect and produced nothing but unicorns and butterflies and the separation of you and your money once you made the agreement with the con artist in question. The idea that nothing is free needs to be extended further because the deception continues on a much larger trans-national scale. Citizens of democratic counties are bombarded with messages about the “free market” and the “free press” two terms that will not lose their scare quotes until they actually start representing what the words purportedly mean.
We’ll confine analysis to the “free press’ part of the equation, as Media Lens focuses on the unseemly bias toward the dominant power structures by the media in society today. Objectivity? Fairness and Accuracy in reporting? You will not find it inside the mainstream media of western countries, as shocking a revelation that is for many. It is tempting here to go down the left-wing/right-wing bias arguement black hole at the juncture, but really the left versus right debate is but a mere flickering candle compared to the supernova-like malfeasance of the courtier “free press” fawning to whomever hold the levers of power in society.
The article we’ll be looking at appears on the Media Lens website. Significant sections will be reviewed here, but to see the work in full: “The Golden Rule of State Violence: Terrorism is What they Do; Counterterrorism is What We do.”
“A defining feature of state power is rhetoric about a ‘moral’ or ‘ethical’ role in world affairs. Errors of judgement, blunders and tactical mistakes can, and do, occur. But the motivation underlying state policy is fundamentally benign. Reporters and commentators, trained or selected for professional ‘reliability’, tend to slavishly adopt this prevailing ideology.
Thus, on the ten-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, an editorial in the Independent on Sunday gushed about ‘Bush’s desire to spread democracy as an end in itself’. It was, the paper said, ‘the germ of a noble idea’. There was ‘an idealism’ about Blair’s support for Bush. The drawback was that the execution of the righteous vision had been ‘naive, arrogant and morally compromised by torture and the abrogation of the very values for which the US-led coalition claimed to fight’.”
Who in their right mind actually thought that we were “spreading democracy” in Iraq? But I guess whatever it takes to sell the idea of war to enough people to make it popular.
“Note that the invasion-occupation of Iraq is described as a ‘mistake’, not the supreme international crime as judged by the standards of the post-WW2 Nuremberg Trials.”
We come to point very early in the article is really damning and says so much about the pablum we are fed by the media. The Nuremberg Trials established rules for the world to follow after WW2 in attempt to head off another costly world catastrophe, they were to be followed not only by the losers of the war but by the victors as well. We broke these conventions, actually we ripped them up used them as toilet paper, and an actual “free press” would brought this and kept this fact in the world’s eye for all to see. But instead, only reputations are tarnished:
“The horrendous murder of Baha Mousa, an Iraqi civilian, by British soldiers ‘was a reminder of how much the Iraq war tarnished Britain’s reputation abroad.’ The implication is that Britain’s ‘reputation’ is fundamentally decent, only occasionally ‘tarnished’.
The paper concludes:
‘there is a hope that Britain, with a more realistic understanding of its capability, could regain some of the ethical role in the world that it lost after its mistaken response to 9/11.’
In the wake of all that has happened in the past ten years (and more), it takes a committed form of self-deception to cling to the shredded image of Britain’s ‘ethical role in the world’.”
Ah, self-deception, we all practice it to a certain extent. When left unchecked on the level of societies and countries though, it becomes a malevolent, destructive force.
The ongoing media campaign to make the economy the monofocus of our societies continues on unabated. Do almost any news search and you will see economic principles overlaid and tied to the idea that somehow they are related to how healthy and how “good” a society actually is. Economic health is but one part of a successful society as a strength of a society not only lies in its economy but in its culture and even more importantly, its people. Jeffry Sachs opines on a better way of analyzing and structuring a society:
“We live in a time of high anxiety. Despite the world’s unprecedented total wealth, there is vast insecurity, unrest, and dissatisfaction. In the United States, a large majority of Americans believe that the country is “on the wrong track”. Pessimism has soared. The same is true in many other places.
Against this backdrop, the time has come to reconsider the basic sources of happiness in our economic life. The relentless pursuit of higher income is leading to unprecedented inequality and anxiety, rather than to greater happiness and life satisfaction. Economic progress is important and can greatly improve the quality of life, but only if it is pursued in line with other goals.”
Let me reassure you skeptical reader, a more egalitarian society is not only better for its people, it is better for productivity as well. What its bad for, capital accumulation and socialism for the rich.
“First, we should not denigrate the value of economic progress. When people are hungry, deprived of basic needs such as clean water, health care, and education, and without meaningful employment, they suffer. Economic development that alleviates poverty is a vital step in boosting happiness.
Second, relentless pursuit of GNP to the exclusion of other goals is also no path to happiness. In the US, GNP has risen sharply in the past 40 years, but happiness has not. Instead, single-minded pursuit of GNP has led to great inequalities of wealth and power, fueled the growth of a vast underclass, trapped millions of children in poverty, and caused serious environmental degradation.”
I would add here, the growth of the courtier corporate media whose job it is to reframe the massive inequality and unjust conditions prevalent in the US as “normal” and manage to get the poor people to actually fight against reforms that would benefit them (see the dismal failure instituting universal healthcare in the US).
“Third, happiness is achieved through a balanced approach to life by both individuals and societies. As individuals, we are unhappy if we are denied our basic material needs, but we are also unhappy if the pursuit of higher incomes replaces our focus on family, friends, community, compassion, and maintaining internal balance. As a society, it is one thing to organise economic policies to keep living standards on the rise, but quite another to subordinate all of society’s values to the pursuit of profit.
Yet politics in the US has increasingly allowed corporate profits to dominate all other aspirations: fairness, justice, trust, physical and mental health, and environmental sustainability. Corporate campaign contributions increasingly undermine the democratic process, with the blessing of the US Supreme Court”
Profits before people, who rather than rightly blame the corporate oligarchy for their misery funnel their discontent toward their government. Of course, the government corrupted by corporate interests, should be a focus of scrutiny but at the moment, the focus of the rage and anger of the American people is mostly displaced.
“Fourth, global capitalism presents many direct threats to happiness. It is destroying the natural environment through climate change and other kinds of pollution, while a relentless stream of oil-industry propaganda keeps many people ignorant of this. It is weakening social trust and mental stability, with the prevalence of clinical depression apparently on the rise. The mass media have become outlets for corporate “messaging”, much of it overtly anti-scientific, and Americans suffer from an increasing range of consumer addictions.”
Consumption is not a way to happiness, it is but a mere false paradise of shallow contrivances, moral turpitude and ethical decay.
“Fifth, to promote happiness, we must identify the many factors other than GNP that can raise or lower society’s well-being. Most countries invest to measure GNP, but spend little to identify the sources of poor health (like fast foods and excessive TV watching), declining social trust, and environmental degradation. Once we understand these factors, we can act.
The mad pursuit of corporate profits is threatening us all. To be sure, we should support economic growth and development, but only in a broader context: one that promotes environmental sustainability and the values of compassion and honesty that are required for social trust.”
What? A balance between rapacious capitalism and social, ethical and environmental concerns? Is it possible? Of course it is possible, but needs to come from outside the current political superstructure of Canada and the United States. The people of the Western countries need to organize (labour unions are a great place to start, as the represent people as opposed to business interests) and campaign for a balanced society, as opposed to the GNP fixated, world destroying paradigm we currently inhabit.
Easy values to follow for a better society.
It is not even a useful question anymore. Fox News might as well be renamed the Republican Party News Channel and get it over with. What they are doing more resembles propaganda than anything else. Liberal Viewer continues his expose on the foibles of faux news.
And to think that a good segment of the American populations has views that are informed by this station, it is the stuff of nightmares for rational people.
Hmmm… a mainstream movie that has an atheist hero? What next? A politician that does not have to believe in fairy tales to be elected?
Upset about troop movements and diplomatic cables being exposed to the public? Accountability and public oversight is *such* a pain. Notice how much coverage Wikileaks has been receiving from the media as of late, close to zero-ish, by my accounting and it is not accidental. Reporting actual news and happenings is dangerous and requires dedication to qualities other than the corporate bottom line.
Do your part to help keep Wikileaks alive and well, as it is a source of what is actually happening in our world, as opposed to the carefully crafted image we are constantly bombarded with.
A big thanks to Moe for posting this video :) Visit her blog Whatever Works when you can, it is most worth your while.
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