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"The news" has always been a staple of life, because information is power.
When radio ruled the planet, it soon became clear that information could and
sometimes needed to be slanted by governments, to underpin national priorities:
especially in times of war. With television, everything changed, because viewers
demanded to see what was happening for themselves in real time as global events
were unfolding. Vietnam was our first in-depth look at war, up-close and
personal, and that resulted in a national revulsion against that war. In that
period public demonstrations were reborn, because so many could now hear and see
some of the reality behind the headlines. What people came to think about,
because of the News, began to change the world dramatically. There was an outcry
against the war that had begun to touch the core of life: and this threatened
the profits for all of those who have always fed on war.
When we were defeated in Southeast Asia, the shock of all that blood and loss
was felt throughout the nation. In so many cases this left life-long scars on
millions of people. This also brought the first real shift in how the news
itself would be reported. Since Vietnam everything about information and
reporting has been altered.
For at least five decades there has been a pact between those involved in the
military-industrial-congressional pact and those who run big business in all its
forms-now commonly known now as the Corporatocracy. After Vietnam, the
Corporatocracy recognized that changes were needed if their favorite schemes
were not to be adversely affected in all future wars.
Major corporations soon began buying up the media, and over time they began
restructuring these new acquisitions. In television they eliminated news
divisions by absorbing them into Entertainment Divisions. In publications and
newspapers they short-changed international and national news, and focused more
on local or regional fluff. Altogether this has eliminated any need for
journalistic integrity. Initially entertainment directors tried telling simple
stories to pretend there was some coverage, but then they cut that down to
paragraphs until the news is now just one-liners, or video clips. This filler
between commercials they linked by phases such as "moving on!" Their "reports" are punctuated with sarcasm or laughter or inane remarks: as though
any viewer would be moved by what a paid reader "thought" about
anything.
What we have now is a world Without the News. When something is not reported,
then the audience tends to believe that it did not happen, and while this
circumstance has taken decades to achieve, we're there now - living in this
surreal bubble, totally devoid of depth or facts or truth.
Without the News, there's no clear or balanced view of where any of us might
be going. Media has become an open sewer of slanted segments, in conjunction
with the government, as though every person in office knew everything about what
they speak to; so no questions are required. Journalists once challenged those
in high office, as to the veracity and the presumptions of the actions that
might flow from what the government is saying. So when government begins to pass
laws blindly, without even reading the legislation, a fact they tend to hide
from the public; this then can begin to make the public wonder. Or, when the
government structurally changes the Constitution, as well as the Bill of Rights
without so much as a debate over what damage might be done - then that situation
deserves a closer look.
Without the News: When the Congress and the President and the Courts are all
of the same opinion and the public is not heard from, on any of what all three
branches are doing - that is a dereliction of duty by those whose job it is - to
ask those questions of the rich and powerful that ordinary mortals cannot ask,
especially in "a time of war."
Without the News: Pandora's Box was opened in the USA, almost without a
murmur. Why did the Constitution grant Freedom of the Press to those
who speak and write to the public issues of the day? If it was not to ask, not
to question, not to challenge those who say they represent us-then why the
privilege? The press was to be a bulwark that would keep the politicians honest,
keep the corruption to a minimum. Maybe that's why our thugs hold no press
conferences, why they take no public questions and then classify everything they
do as secret. Seems like a funny way to run an open and democratic Republic, at
least to those of us who thought we had some say, in what our nation does or
does not do. But that's what happens Without the News.
In Vietnam the eyes of the world became obsessed with that conflict. After
the debacle, a silent vow was taken against allowing the public to ever again
see what was actually happening to our forces. An outgrowth of that was to stop
counting the bodies of the dead, because the Corporatocracy and the military
discovered that the truth might kill the will of the people to tolerate the war.
Also they concluded that "Without the News" people might not object or
even question anything the country did or tried to do: for Vietnam just like
Iraq, was yet another war over nothing at all. So the rules of coverage changed.
In the first Gulf War, under Daddy Bush, policies were initiated that insured
that the public would get only sterilized reports of what our troops were doing.
Now there's this: http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/
The Corporatocracy has now seen to it that Americans should get used to
living their lives Without the News. Because the overlords discovered that for
Americans, if something doesn't appear on the box, or isn't covered as an event
- then it probably didn't happen!
The world covers the war in Iraq and the net covers our every move; and the
US media denies it all, reporting only the barest details; misreporting,
slanting whatever might adversely affect the game of profits on which all wars
are truly based. Without the News, Americans do not realize that the USA now
stands for brutality and barbarity, for tyranny and thuggery around the world.
Our "word" means little anymore, because our officials know only how
to lie. Without the News, we are unaware that a number of our top officials and
past politicians are being charged with war crimes, along with crimes against
humanity - in other countries. Without the News, we go about our days and nights
like lemmings being led to slaughter: bitter, greedy, arrogant and blind to
everything except what we think might profit us as individuals.
Without the News: Michael Jackson's arrest was used to cover-up the attack by
the police in the City of Miami - when forces in league with the lockdown of
this nation, decided to send a message to FTAA demonstrators by terrorizing
Miami with overwhelming force. http://www.indymedia.org.uk/
There are dozens of similar examples, but the rules remain in place. Without
accurate and complete information the people of any country cannot make
decisions about what is taking place anywhere. Without the News in depth, no
society can function, and it all becomes a surreal blur in which nothing makes
much sense. That's where we are today. That's why the president can offer us a
budget that leaves out the $300 billon costs of the war, the trillions in tax
cuts, and is allowed to assume the "savings" achieved by cutting 150
government programs that citizens need, to keep some promise in their lives.
Without the News: surreality has been compounded by paranoia and has focused
on fear and terror only, while avoiding any disclosures that might damage what
is really being done with all the money looted from Social Security and from all
the trust funds that were supposedly secure. Even death is not immune from the
attack of the Barbarians: Bush has classified the deaths of American troops, as
some kind of threat to national security.
With the News in Vietnam there were a number of
White Papers generated,
media reports that analyzed what was going on and why. The demonstrations here
were covered in depth. Programs like 60 Minutes and a number of major news
outlets, all contributed to the end to that hideous war. Because of that truth,
we are Without the News today, and what we get now is only the sterilized view
of what we've been doing since we invaded Afghanistan.
This nation went to war with all the fanfare of the Fourth of July and New
Year's Eve rolled into one. The War was reported everywhere with stock footage
of "war, war and lots more war." Then (blink) the war was finished and
of course we won "Mission Accomplished!" A hundred and twenty
something of our troops died and that was that, except that now it's over ten
times that number, the war continues and there is no end in sight - ever! The
media talked us through the many changes in the reasons for the wars, and none
of them have stuck so far. Without the News the public is forced to look to each
new lie for answers that never alter what we do - except to deepen all the
horror and prolong the agony for all involved. Without the News-the
entertainment editors have produced no searching thoughtful pieces exploring
this strangely twisted mess. Just business as usual, and on with the show!
Without the News: It is no wonder that so many are confused when today's
parrots begin to mix their spin, with outright lies, and with disinformation
combined with flagrant non-reporting. Is that why the Nuremberg Tribunals
included the Nazi news media among those who were charged with crimes against
humanity under the Nazi's? Could it be that in 1945 we recognized that psy-ops
served the purposes of dictators and crimes against humanity? If that was true
then, why has our view changed?
Part of the problem here is that our airwaves are flooded with constant
commercial crap. So much so that most people have had to learn the art of
selective hearing, selective seeing and continuously edited thinking. The result
is that too many compartmentalize everything, labeling and filing by category,
or just tossing them as they come in. Politics is about political thought and
that process by which any nation governs any country. Without the News:
"Politics" is dismissed out-of-hand, as worthless-just a game for the
naïve, which has a lot to do with why so many choose not to hear what's really
going on. Without the News there is no need for journalism, no need to track
events, or to distinguish the values that we place at issue whenever we chose to
conquer rather than discuss. Without the News, we are nothing but a reactive
mass of appetites in need of feeding, and too many of us are open only to the
lowest forms of greed and arrogance, which is exactly where the Barbarians want
this population to remain.
Remember the next time you watch your favorite anchor tell you unctuously
about what's really important in your world. Wouldn't your time be far better
spent educating yourself on the net, and by doing your own fact checking? What
would happen if the media were flooded with continuous complaints? Congress
doesn't listen, but the idiots in the network need to, because they're rapidly
losing market share. Why not call the anchors, fax them, and e-mail them: demand
that they report what the world already knows-The NEWS!
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