Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2002 21:37:13 -0800 (PST)
Subject: to berry, liam & whoever else might care about the relevance of protest & the media


> there is vigorous and ongoing debate in
> the u.s. about the death penalty, at the local,
> state and national level, in the mainstream and
> other press.  

i'll give you that. you're right, but my point is that
when ppl talk about it as though it's ever-so-horrible
and brutal 'over there,' and they don't even think
about the fact that it is in the US as well, and (in
my experience) when you call them on it they have to
think and then they realize that 'yeah i live in a
country which practices it too,' but they still
display the attitude that it's not as bad here. it's
always worse there than here.

and rushdie just when on ranting about it. i would've
had more respect for him if he'd at least mentioned
that it exists here too in an effort to show a
parallel instead of just feeding more negativity into
a region that already exudes more than it's share in
the press.  

on the chomsky thing: yeah chomsky does have a cult
status. but let's compare him to a rock star as you
did. a cult band (chomsky & the dissidents [that's
actually a good name for band] can sell out bars all
over the country, but a top mainstream band like the
the Stones (the talking heads on cnn and ny times) can
sell out arenas worldwide. who will have the stronger
voice and affect more lives and have more influence?
the cult band or the mainstream? the point is that
while chomsky and others are popular, 1 in maybe 300
know who he is and what he stands for, yet everyone
knows what the status quo whores on cnn stand for and
because they have a bigger forum they'll have more ppl
listening and can thereby have a greater affect on
popular thought. how many ppl watch c-span vs nbc
nightly news? how many ppl read the nation vs. the ny
times. i'm not saying these ppl are invisible but i am
saying there is a concerted effort to keep them down.
for example every time i've ever seen chomsky (or
anyone else like him) on c-span it's nearly always
been on at like 3am when there's about the least
televised visibility (not that c-span is breaking any
viewing records as it is) to the populace. now i'll
grant you that maybe it's because i'm a night owl and
that's when i see him, but i do watch during the day
now and again and when i do it's almost always the
status quo babbling on as they mentally masturbate
each other on whatever issue tickles their fancy. it's
like 'we'll give you freedom of speech but we'll do it
in such a way as to nearly erase your forum so that
you might as well be talking to no one in terms of a
televised audience, thereby keeping the playing field
safe our plutocratic oligarchy.'

everyone knows that albinos exist but how often do we
see them vs the 'normal ones?' 

*****

and now to liam:

> This is really unpardonably anti-intellectual.  

'unpardonably anti-intellectual'? well, considering
i've always thought the term 'intellectual' was rather
elitist anyway, i guess i'll take that as a
compliment.

> What do you mean by controlled?  

i mean that the 'dissidents' that they bring on shows
here in the US are your basic gov't supporting 'we
disagree but we'll be pc in doing it so we can have
the spotlite again next week' drones. they rarely have
anyone who, is for lack of a better term, 'radical' (i
should qualify that and say that i'm not talking about
your kill the president and take out the cabinet too
lunatics). they'd never dare have anyone on who'd be
so
bold as to say that under UN charter every president
since ww2 could be tried for crimes against humanity,
etc. it's all the safe ones that the US gets on TV.
and to say that there is not a conscious effort to
keep it this way is imo a bit naive.

> I think there is evidence that the widespread 
> protest from many quarters, including those who Bush
> would traditionally list among his
> allies, has for the moment prevented unilateral US 
> military action.

i'm willing to bet that by march the US will be
involved in full scale war in iraq, possibly sooner.
the killers are already playing their little war games
in qatar which is probably not for nothing. so based
on events taking place now what good did it do for the
'not in our name protest' held nationwide back in
october? at best it may have kept a few hundred
thousand iraqis from dying then. but they'll probably
still die from US gunfire anyway unfortunately. bushie
gave 'em a few more weeks to wait before his little
soldier drones massacre them.

saddam tried to have bush's war criminal dad killed,
and i doubt the moron heir-to-the-throne son will let
that go, especially if he can carry on his dirtbag
dad's warmonger legacy and make his old man proud.

> This isn't a victory if victory is only measured as
> the overthrow of the Bush government - or any 
> capitalist government in the US.  

i'll give you that that's a stretch.

am i defeatist? probably because i never see any
change in gov't and the way it's played and i feel as
though there's nothing that can be done. i wish i had
the ability to have articles published in newspapers
so others could read them because then i'd write, but
i see no point in publishing in journals because so
few read them, for many reasons, excessively small
circulation being only one factor. i'd rather have a
voice that's heard than to have one that's always
whispering. maybe i'm too idealistic. nihilistic.
maybe it doesn't even matter, in fact i'm
sure it doesn't.

gr3g



====
'if you believe in nothing, you'll never be disappointed.'   
-anonymous 


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