We always hear about suicide bombers and how many Israeli soldiers and civilians are killed. We never hear about Palestinian casualties or why Palestinians might be taking the extreme act of killing themselves to make a point. This link is just one story of many similar that we never hear about:
Israeli troops raid Nablus at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E1CCBD0A-C8AD-43AC-91B5-47A2C7F57CC0.htm
is important for democracy, but all too often we see journalists just churning out the official story without investigation. I happened to see this entry in a blog called Library Juice:
August 5, 2006
AEJMC anti-Bush resolutionThe Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication passed a resolution against the Bush Administration’s anti-press policies yesterday in San Francisco, at it’s annual conference.
The resolution says,
“The relationship between the presidency and press has always been uneasy. This tension is both unavoidable and generally salutary: When each side conducts its duties with honesty and integrity, both hold the power of the other in check. It is difficult to find a period in American history in which this mutual opposition did not exist.
“However, it has come to pass that the current administration has engaged in a number of practices and has enacted a series of severe and extraordinary policies that attack the press specifically and by extension, democracy itself.
“A working democracy requires a free press that is muscular in its reporting. It requires a press that holds leaders accountable for their actions. It requires a press that contrasts leaders’ words with their actions. It requires a press that uncovers errors and wrongdoing by employing named and unnamed sources. We believe the actions of the current administration compromise these press functions.
“The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press. However, American press history has been marked by periods in which press freedoms have retreated. The Alien and Sedition Acts of the 1790s represented one such period. Another was during the Civil War, in which journalists were jailed en masse because of dissent. The Espionage Act of 1917 paved the way for encroachments on press freedom (see Schenk v. United States). In each of these periods, politicians, judges, and scholars came to see, at least in hindsight, that anti-press policies in the name of national unity produced real harm to democracy itself. We believe that the Bush administration’s anti-press policies and practices represent another major period.”
More such resistance to policies designed to take away freedoms is required in order for America to actually stay a 'democracy'.
I've read how the US has tried to improve its image through branding, employing Charlotte Beers, a commercial advertiser, as if selling the US was as easy as selling Uncle Ben's rice. What the US fails to understand is that no matter what sort of image they try to portray through the media, the facts speak for themselves, and those who are fortunate enough not to live there can see for themselves objectively just what effect US foreign policy has had on the rest of the world.
You cannot brand a government as if it's a packet of food. Author Naomi Klein noted that aggressive branding ensures corporate monologue not social dialogue and when governments try to implement global image consistency
"they can look distinctly authoritarian. It's no coincidence that the political leaders most preoccupied with branding themselves and their parties were also allergic to democracy and diversity. Historically, this has been the ugly flipside of politicians striving for consistency of brand: centralised information, state-controlled media, re-education camps, purging of dissidents and much worse."
America is Not a Hamburger, 2002
Opinion of the US by anyone who is not American, is influenced more by what the US does, than by anything it can say. Naturally there are those in the west who believe anything they see on TV, but you will not sway those in the Middle East to accept American 'democracy' when you keep on bombing them and giving those bombs to Israel.
An excellent little article at Alternet about the media feeding governmental fear-mongering. I wish people would actually realise what's going on instead of believing the shite broadcast internationally. I no longer watch TV news - it's all western bias propaganda. Instead I follow several different independent sites and form my own thoughts and opinions from what I read. Once you become a sceptic of mainstream media, it's easy to see what's probably true and what is probably not.
Anyway, here's the link to Alternet.
This seems to be an interesting debate in itself. The small-minded, bigoted and biased will always believe their "sources" to be the truth and refuse to even consider that what they've been told is not the truth. These same people will claim that you're just as biased and that you read "leftwing" propaganda. Try to argue to the contrary and you get nowhere. Obviously anything that contradicts their belief is wrong. No argument, no consideration, no listening, no conciliation, no budging from their stubborn pigheadedness.
I came upon a friend arguing with another about the election results which made Bush president (well they didn't, but try telling a republican that). The friend, unfortunately, although educated and not stupid in the least, is a republican. He has degrees, can spout impressively on any topic, yet refuses to listen to people who try to point out that there may be some facts that he's not aware of. Naturally he doesn't accept they're "facts" but "conspiracies". Prove it, he says. And on giving some sources, he poo-poos them as leftist or conspiracy theorists. I asked him what sources he used for his information. Are you sitting down?
Newspapers and TV.
I couldn't believe it. How can a well-educated, otherwise intelligent person, believe the media on such important matters? He thinks they're not biased? Obviously his university courses taught him nothing about being open-minded, questioning, and being wary of accepting anything on face value. I was flabbergasted. It seemed he believed what he read in the newspapers and what he heard on TV had more authority than the writings of 'leftist' authors of books and articles in academic libraries that I've read over several years. Unbelievable. Is there any hope for the "uneducated" masses?
A nice list from alternet on overhyped and underrated stories for 2005:
Mood: annoyed
Mood: cynical
" When media report wars or disasters, why are death tolls announced before bodies are counted? And what does this do to our democracy? "
The numbers game: death, media and the public
Jean Seaton raises a very good point. I've noticed it myself - when a disaster strikes the body count is estimated at a very high number, to get our attention. For a start, how can they possibly know how many have died so soon. The trouble is, as the truth becomes apparent and an actual body count emerges, the erroneous estimate is still often quoted. Apparently it's not a disaster unless thousands died (but, of course, even more so if the victims are white).
Numbers are part of the lies. The numbers of dead of the 'enemy' or civilians of invaded countries is always grossly underestimated, while the patriotic soldiers' death numbers are overstated. No-one ever hears about the thousands (actually more like over a million) people who have died as a result of US sanctions on Iraq. What did that achieve exactly? And then to kick them when they're down and actually dare to claim they're planning a nuclear attack on the States. Oh please. They just want clean water and jobs and to live peacefully. Then fuckwit Bush decides to go in and kill off a few more (well big daddy did, didn't he). Well actually he didn't do anything - just sat back and played golf or whatever the fuck he does after he's made these outrageous decisions.
Been busy so haven't managed to catch up with any reading. I really wonder about these 'Islamic' attacks in Bali. Every attack has a motive - but we're not hearing about it. Perhaps they're orchestrated to justify Howard's crackdown on liberties in Australia. There's another fuckwit if ever there was one - a Bush asskisser like Blair.
