Tuesday, May 17, 2005
The only thing I can offerOh sun, moon, stars, our other
relatives peering at us from the inside of god's house, walk with us as
we climb into the next century naked but for the stories we have of
each other. Keep us from giving up in this land of nightmares which is
also the land of miracles. -- Joy Harjo 9:33:28 AM | I'm sorry you are going through this, Daniel. We're pulling for you. 
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"a democracy can die of too many lies"If you only have time to watch one thing today, let it be Bill Moyers' speech at the National Conference for Media Reform on Democracy Now!.
In it, Moyers discusses how the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has
been taken over by right wingnuts and that Kenneth Tomlinson, CPB's
chair, is a tool of the Bush Administration set on making PBS another
vessel for their propaganda. Along the way, he talks about his history
with PBS (which began when CPB was first founded during the Johnson
administration) and how the right has worked to squelch dissent and
make anyone who questions the administration "unpatriotic." He quotes
directly from 1984 to illustrate the similarities between the
totalitarian government Orwell described and our current
administration's desire to control thought. Here's a short excerpt: 9:21:46 AM | [...] Instead of acting as filters for
readers and viewers sifting the truth from the propaganda, reporters
and anchors attentively transcribe both sides of the spin invariably
failing to provide context, background or any sense of which claims
hold up and which are misleading.
I decided long ago that this wasn't healthy for democracy. I came to see that news is what people want to keep hidden, and everything else is publicity. In my documentaries, whether on the Watergate scandal thirty years ago, or the Iran-Contra conspiracy twenty years ago, or Bill Clinton's fundraising scandals ten years ago, or five years ago the chemical industry's long and despicable cover up of its cynical and unspeakable withholding of critical data about its toxic products, I realized that investigative journalism could not be a collaboration between the journalist and the subject. Objectivity was not satisfied by two opposing people offering competing opinions, leaving the viewer to split the difference. I came to believe that objective journalism means describing the object being reported on, including the little fibs and fantasies, as well as the big lie of people in power. In no way does this permit journalists to make accusations and allegations. It means, instead, making sure that your reporting and your conclusions can be nailed to the post with confirming evidence. This is always hard to do, but it's never been harder. Without a trace of irony, the powers that be have appropriated the Newspeak vernacular of George Orwell's 1984. They give us a program vowing no child will be left behind, while cutting funds for educating disadvantaged children; they give us legislation cheerily calling for clear skies and healthy forests that give us neither, while turning over our public lands to the energy industry. In Orwell's 1984 the character Syme, one of the writers of that totalitarian society's dictionary, explains to the protagonist, Winston, "Don't you see? Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050 at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we're having right now. The whole climate of thought," he said, "will be different. In fact, there will be no thought as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking, not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." Hear me: an unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda is less inclined to put up a fight, ask questions and be skeptical. And just as a democracy can die of too many lies, that kind of orthodoxy can kill us, too. [...] And this particularly struck me. Moyers read exactly what he said at the close of a Now broadcast: [...] "I wore my flag tonight, first
time. Until now I haven't thought it necessary to display a little
metallic icon of patriotism for everyone to see. It was enough to vote,
pay my taxes, perform my civic duties, speak my mind and do my best to
raise our kids to be good Americans. Sometimes I would offer a small
prayer of gratitude that I had been born in a country whose
institutions sustain me, whose armed forces protected me and whose
ideals inspired me. I offered my heart's affection in return. It no
more occurred to me to flaunt the flag on my chest than it did to pin
my mother's picture on my lapel to prove her son's love. Mother knew
where I stood. So does my country. I even tuck a valentine in my tax
returns on April 15th. So what's this doing here? I put it on to take
it back. The flag's been hijacked and turned into a logo, the trademark
âo[base "] the trademark of a monopoly on patriotism. On most Sunday morning
talk shows, official chests appear adorned with the flag as if it's the
Good Housekeeping seal of approval. During the State of the Union, did
you notice Bush and Cheney wearing the flag? How come? No
administration's patriotism is ever in doubt, only its policies. And
the flag bestows no immunity from error. When I see flags sprouting on
official labels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao's Little
Red Book of orthodoxy on every official's desk, omnipresent and unread.
"But more galling than anything are all those moralistic ideologues in Washington sporting the flag in their lapel while writing books and running web sites and publishing magazines attacking dissenters as un-American. They are people whose ardor for war grows disproportionately to their distance from the fighting. They're in the same league as those swarms of corporate lobbyists wearing flags and prowling Capitol Hill for tax breaks, even as they call for spending more on war. "So I put this on as a modest repose to men with flags in their lapels who shoot missiles from the safety of Washington think tanks. or argue that sacrifice is good as long as they don't have to make it, or approve of bribing governments to join the 'Coalition of the Willing.' I put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what bin Laden did to us. The flag belongs to the country, not to the government, and it reminds me that it's not un-American to think that war, except in self defense, is a failure of moral imagination, political nerve and diplomacy. Come to think of it, standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country." Salon has an excerpt of the speech in today's issue. Read it and weep!
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Last update: 8/24/05; 8:16:42 PM .
