To the Mainstream Media (do your job)
Date: 16/02/08
The American government has been interfering with the
internal affairs of state, arming and funding the violent
overthrow of democratically-elected governments, propping up
puppet regimes willing to sell out their resources to the lowest,
most violent bidder for personal gain - sometimes that's us -
frustrating the democratic will of peoples - i.e. Saudi Arabia
where the 9/11 attackers hailed from - for years, and years,
many shameful, enemy-making years.
The anthrax scares in Washington D.C. a few years ago.
Some believe that might have been an inside job to threaten
and cower political leaders to tow the line. It wasn't just the job
of the media. But where the hell were the investigative
journalists looking to expose the truth, serve their country and
gain the glory?
Vote-rigging. Vote-rigging is not something to footnote in a
democracy. It is something to scream about, loud - as a
constant, repetitious refrain: Who did it, the motives, the
numbers, the consequences, the hows the wheres the whys.
We don't make nice with thieves and cheaters and say 'we
must move on' - leaving thieves and cheaters in charge 'for the
good of the country'. This is good?! (No. It's not.)
Iraq. How about some history on Iraq: Saddam Hussein and
the political-military-industrial complex's dealings with Iraq?
In other words, how about hammering away at the truth?
Telling the truth can be fun.
Get jiggy with the lies American administrations have told the
American people about Iraq. Have a sock hop blast of a time
telling the people what poll after poll say that they think about
the war and what they want to happen about it ---that the troops
should be brought home.
Bush is a lame duck president who can quack as loud as he
wants and bluster on about powers he thinks he has vested in
his office that he doesn't.
Let's be serious. This is a guy who may be hearing voices
when he says he knows what God wants him to do.
He's got less public support at this point than Nixon in the
darkest days of the Watergate scandal, and Nixon actually
tried to develop and nurture foreign relations.
Bush, on the other hand, bombs the shit out of anything that
moves. Nixon said, let's work on energy conservation and
develop alternative energy sources. Bush doctrine clearly
thinks hey! Why conserve or innovate when they got what we
want over there?
On Iran. How about a little history on Iran to go along with the
current American administration's apparent desire to nuke that
country back to the stone age? How about letting the
American public in on the open secret that Iran has been
attacked by proxy by the U.S., time and time and time again -
counting hundreds of thousands of Iranian dead, tortured,
silenced.
What would you do if you were Iran, and you're called part of
the 'axis of evil', you keep getting the shit kicked out of you,
with the U.S. declaring it reserves the right to preemptively
deploy nuclear weapons? That the administration currently has
ships ordered deployed off Iran's shores? You don't have to be
a genius to read the cards. All Iran has to do is look at what
has been done to its neighbor, Iraq. What would you do -
outside of crap your drawers, that is.
Third World War. That is what Bush and all his neocon,
military-industrial complex pals seem to want. Want it or not,
they are doing all the right things to see that we all get it. What
burns, is that it's not them but the rest of the country, the rest of
the damned planet that will be paying the price in blood.
Perusing Kissinger's book, 'Years of Upheaval', I came upon
this: 'A nation's capacity to act is based on an intangible
amalgam of strength, reputation, and commitment to principle.
To be harnessed, and applied with care and discrimination,
these qualities require authority, backed by public confidence.'
(p. 77.) He was writing of his profound dismay at the inevitable
consequences to the country of Watergate. (I leave it to others
to judge for themselves any inherent irony in the quotation.)
That commitment to principle is urgently required of the
mainstream media, be it print, television or radio. You're not
supposed to be polite, or deferential, to the country's
leadership. You're not supposed to worry more about how you
look on high-def than about what to do or say when you are on.
You're supposed to put the people in charge, and those
running for the job, on the spot - and be relentless in the pursuit
of answers.
You 'support the troops' by asking the hard questions about
whether they ought to be in harm's way in the first place. You
support your country by asking the hard questions about
whether or not your country's foreign policy is designed with the
Golden Rule in mind, or whether it is busy making enemies for
all of us, all around the world.
You're supposed to get out there and talk to the
representatives of those who protest, and the people on the
ground, and all the eggheads in all the think tanks that nobody
has talked to for many years - try the Union of Concerned
Scientists, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Democracy
Now! people, the Freedom Forward Foundation, writer
Jonathan Cook, or John Pilger, Ralph Nader, hell!, there's
hundreds of knowledgeable people out there just waiting to be
asked.
You're supposed to dig, and dig, and dig for the facts and the
truth no matter what anybody tries to tell you different. The time
is short. Maybe shorter than at any point in human history.
May be, it's now or never. By the time you know it's never it's
too late. Scary.
Part of what makes it so scary is the radio, television and
Nancy Pelosi-type silence.
We're in this together. We've been put here by others. We
didn't ask for any of it. That's the way it always is. You're
needed. Your country needs you. When I write, I think about
the fact that my kids needs me to stand for them and the future.
The future is not written. Yet.
There is still time. I am writing to encourage you to stand up, to
stay on it, and to do your job.
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