1. Don’t look now, but the
zeitgeist is shifting.
by
Andrew E. Hall
omnibus
2. Jarring autonomics . . . medullas assaulted in multi-various
ways, mostly made to prime the pumps of pompous plutocrats
Tsssht
History Channeled into colourised versions of
Hitlers and Himmlers and Görings / and gore / as if
seeing it in black and white wasn’t bad enough
As if monochrome mania isn’t quite capable of hitting
a home run in our sensorial sitting places . . .
. . . where news is a muse for stockmarketeers: voyeurs
of slips and slides, rises and falls, of raids /
hostile and otherwise / on homes, on histories
Hagiographers stylin’ Jobs and Buffett / Lindsay Lohan, for
chrisake / buffeting the little ones, cajoling always:
This is real
This is REAL
And you are not
Hagiographers who look at saintly things, sinister in
their picking, in their choosing, foisting facades
upon those who might otherwise hear Handel and Bach,
Mendel, instead of deafening Wagnerian Valkiries
appropriating the plains of human happiness
Be afraid
Be very afraid
It speaks to your bigotry . . . it speaks
to your agoraphobic solitude
Turn it on
It’s good for you they reckon . . .
. . . if not, why do programmers dote
on disasters and diabologies?
Fear keeps you here / militates meretriciously in
movement of mind and body / in private places you
are wont to visit / in your timidity / in your lack
of tolerance / in your totalitarian tripping of the
switches that terminate lives, dreams, desires
Frissions of static concocted to line silk
purses: the mirrored sows’ ears of sojourns never
undertaken because we, too, are static
We are too static . . . while statisticians
reveal us in all our vainglory
In all our laziness . . .
Tsssht.
That said, how’re you guys doing?
If you were in New York would you be occupying
Wall Street or having a Tea Party?
In Los Angeles, London, Cairo, Damascus, Bahrain, Sydney
and Melbourne where people have set up camps in prominent
places – sometimes harassed by paramilitaries, sometimes
killed by them – the cry of “we’re mad as hell and we’re not
taking it any more” has gone up. Are you a bit cross too?
“Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor”
. . . has been laid at the door of bureaucracies and
banks and brokerages. At the feet of dictators and
democracies alike. Because when the big boys get into
trouble they get bailed-out, while middle and lower
layers are left to the tender mercies of the market.
What does it all mean?
Whatever it is, a social upheaval is happening around the
world, ably assisted by on-line social networks and other
mod comms. Perhaps as a pushback against more traditional
media formats, people are taking the information environment
into their own hands and using it to organise. To protest.
To portray the plutocracies as detrimental to even-handed
sociopolitical management. To call to account the people who
prop up corrupt and corrupting corporations and at the same
time let the “little people” bleed all over themselves.
There have, of course, been abuses perpetrated by
protestors as evidenced by the riots in London and
other parts of England in 2011, which left many
a small business devastated and destitute.
Have we reached a socio-cultural Rubicon?
Has the “top end of town” finally gone too
far in its rapacious self-interest?
Or are the protesters missing something about the trickle-
down effect of extreme wealth – a rhetorical question
because there isn’t a scrap of evidence to suggest that
this Thatcherite/Reaganite concoction actually exists.
Have they not quite understood that power structures are
necessary hierarchies – yes, they’re not silly; they merely
question governments’ tolerance of abuses of corporate
power. And lack of compassion for “lesser” mortals.
3. Owners of the means of media production appear to be
pushing back against an increasingly skeptical public
– fear-mongering on a grand scale in an effort to
keep people in their place/s. Governments too.
A case-in-point is that during November 2011 the US
government “revealed” - by way of the media - a new war
plan for the containment and conquest of . . . China. As
if they haven’t got enough on their plates with Iraq and
Afghanistan. It’s always good to have an(other) enemy though
– someone to kick when the chips are down domestically.
The reporting of this new “Cold War” approach to Chinese
expansionism . . . wait a minute . . . say again!
Please, I’m not hearing right. Surely I’m not reading
right. Please tell me I’m losing my faculties!
Nope.
“The plan calls for preparing the Air Force, Navy and
Marine Corps to defeat China’s ‘anti-access, area denial
weapons,’ including anti-satellite weapons, cyber-
weapons, submarines, stealth aircraft and long-range
missiles that can hit aircraft carriers at sea.
“Military officials from the three services told
reporters during a background briefing that the
concept is not directed at a single country. But they
did not answer when asked what country other than
China has developed advanced anti-access arms.
“A senior Obama administration official was more blunt, saying
the new concept is a significant milestone signaling a new Cold
War-style approach to China,” The Washington Times reported.
Barack Obama, what are you thinking?
The Chinese have been paying your debts for ages, and
now you want to add to the X-trillion-dollar deficit by
getting them to pay for your Pentagon to come up with
a plan about how to shoot the shit out of them?
Dude, I used to think you were cool . . .
Is your only saving grace, now, that the political forces
arrayed against you domestically are completely bonkers?
In keeping with the conservative owners of The Washington
Times (founded in 1982 by the Unifying Church of Sun Myung
Moon), the Murdoch media empire propagandises plights of
peoples as if they were merely so much grist to his imperial
mill - so that all that is left is a black and white
bellyache about notions of left and right, wrong and right.
“. . . and when his gorgon-headed scandal sheets
present their daily bytes . . . to give the righteous
news believers drugs to keep them white . . .” says
singer/songwriter Roy Harper (although not about
Murdoch in particular, or loony-tune Moon).
Rupert Murdoch’s own mother, Dame Elizabeth,
describes her son thus: “To understand Rupert,
to truly know him is to realise that he’s just a
businessman. And there’s no morality in business.”
Thanks Liz, you might have warned us!
Neo-con cons and their loyal lobbyists connive to capture
powerful partisans who leave behind mutilated middle
classes (the socio-economic engines so critical to
maintaining sustainable consumption and economic growth).
On the natural history channels it’s all sharks and nazis;
hillbillies and hobgoblins; riots and rampages . . .
guns and more guns. Hollywood is obsessed with violence
as a rational solution to just about any grievance.
More moderate – one might suggest, objective, small-“l”
liberal – news organisations struggle against the tide to
provide some form of accuracy and balance while fending
off take-overs and tradeoffs. There are still some “good
guys” out there who take their membership of the Fourth
Estate seriously, responsibly. But they’re a dying breed.
The term Fourth Estate is attributed to British
parliamentarian, Edmund Burke, who in an address to his
fellows in the latter half of the 18th century said:
“There are three Estates in Parliament, but in
the reporters gallery yonder, there sits a fourth
Estate more important, far, than they all.”
The three estates he referred to were the Lords
Temporal, the Lords Spiritual and the Commons. The
Lords Temporal and the Lords Spiritual combined being
The House of Lords - the upper house of parliament, -
while the Commons is the British lower house.
Across the Atlantic at roughly the same time the third
president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, said:
“No government ought to be without censors and
where the press is free, no one ever will.”
I wonder what he might think if he was alive today in
the wake of the ongoing saga surrounding the illegal
activities of Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World
tabloid (outlined in the previous issue of The Yak).
And in a moment of prescience, in a letter
to George Washington, he also said:
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to
our liberties than standing armies. If the American people
ever allow private banks to control the issue of their
currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks
and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will
deprive the people of all property until their children
wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
The issuing power should be taken from the banks and
restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
The issues surrounding good governance (versus
capitulation to captains of industry), corporate
excess, media complicity, and the events exemplified by
the Occupy movement are inextricably intertwined.
Where is the “free” press (see also the other commercial
media) when one man who heads what has been called – by
omnibus
5. "Banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies."
– Thomas Jefferson, 1743 - 1826
omnibus
prescient: thomas jefferson.
6. the founder of Crikey.com, Stephen Mayne - “the most
powerful family in the world” owns so much of it?
Carl Bernstein – who made his reputation when he and
Bob Woodward revealed the Watergate cover-up, which led
to the downfall of Richard Nixon – recently wrote:
“The hacking scandal currently shaking Rupert Murdoch’s
empire will surprise only those who have willfully blinded
themselves to that empire’s pernicious influence on journalism
in the English-speaking world. Too many of us have winked
in amusement at the salaciousness without considering the
larger corruption of journalism and politics promulgated
by Murdoch Culture on both sides of the Atlantic.
“All of this surrounding a man and a media empire with
no serious rivals for political influence in Britain—
especially, but not exclusively, among the conservative
Tories who currently run the country . . .
“Murdoch associates, present and former—and his
biographers—have said that one of his greatest long-
term ambitions has been to replicate that political
and cultural power in the United States . . .
“. . . (T)hen came the unfair and imbalanced politicized
“news” of the Fox News Channel—showing (again) Murdoch’s
genius at building an empire on the basis of an ever-
descending lowest journalistic denominator. It, too,
rests on a foundation that has little or nothing to do
with the best traditions and values of real reporting
and responsible journalism: the best obtainable
version of the truth. In place of this journalistic
ideal, the enduring Murdoch ethic substitutes gossip,
sensationalism, and manufactured controversy.”
It’s no wonder that droves of people eschew the mainstream
media in favour of on-line informational environments. In
the past we might have been able to argue that there is an
inherent danger in this because these spaces lack the filters –
the checks and balances – that have existed in the traditions
and values referred to by Bernstein, for over a century. But
ethics in journalism have been swept aside to accommodate
the profit motive and shareholder value-adding. No different,
really, to the banking and (other) business sectors.
So how do we, the people, get a handle on what’s
really going on in the world we all share?
Again, I turn to the ongoing “seismic” (Bernstein’s
reference) events surrounding the News of the World
criminal investigations and parliamentary inquiries –
because it is a poignant metaphor for what motivates the
Occupy movement/s. And the Murdochs can no longer hide
behind their influence peddling. In a sense the British
parliamentarians (and those who are considering convening
similar bodies in the US and Australia) involved in the
inquiries have (unwittingly) allied themselves with those
who are demanding answers from global corporations and the
governments that have spent untold amounts of taxpayer money
to bail them out – in lieu of their CEOs’, CFOs’, COOs’,
(and their lawyers’), at best, “misguided” decision-making.
Heir apparent to the Murdoch empire, James, last
November appeared for the second time before a British
parliamentary inquiry where he faced tough questioning
about his knowledge about illegal activities (that
have not been denied, but profusely apologised for)
in the company he heads, News International.
Labour MP, Tom Watson, put it this way to James Murdoch:
Watson: Are you familiar with the term Mafia?
Murdoch: Yes Mr. Watson.
Watson: Have you heard the term “omerta”
[the Mafia code of silence]?
Murdoch: I’m not an aficionado about such matters.
Watson: Would you agree with me that this is an
accurate description of News International?
Murdoch: Frankly that’s offensive and not true.
Watson: You must be the first Mafia boss in history who
didn’t know he was running a criminal enterprise.
Ouch!
But millions upon millions consume his father’s products.
Here’s an interesting – and fairly depressing – exercise
for you to carry out in your spare time (if you’re
an average worker with a family to look after you
probably don’t have enough, so you’re excused):
Do a straw poll of everyone you meet and determine how
many of them watch Fox versus how many prefer, say,
America’s PBS or Britain’s BBC . . . it’s an insightful
and accurate guide to their characters (or how easily their
characters can be manipulated). Second only to the ultimate
character guide: how a person parks his or her car . . .
Enter Julian Assange who has been tagged “the most
dangerous man in the world” because he has a knack
with computers and uses them to find and publish
information that various governments and corporations
would rather not see in the public space.
Personally, I would award the “dangerous” epithet
to another (former) Australian whose surname
begins with “M”. But that’s just me.
At the time of writing Assange is awaiting extradition
from the UK to Sweden to face sexual assault charges,
but the website (along with a bunch of mirror
sites) he founded, Wikileaks, continues to offer up
information that would otherwise be “classified” by the
government/s and corporations that manufacture it.
Wikileaks’ April 2010 release of a video shot through the
gun sight of a US Apache attack helicopter while it strafes
and kills Iraqi civilians and a Reuters news crew – to the
delight of the chopper’s crew – was a spectacularly sick
example of what authorities would prefer us not to know.
Of course States must have their secrets, as much as
corporations, likewise, must keep certain information
confidential – it’s about maintaining competitive
advantage (and avoiding embarrassment when things go
pear-shaped). There are freedom of information clauses
written into most democracies’ legislative structures but
7. the process of extracting information from governments
about things they’d prefer to keep to themselves through
FOI requests can be protracted and cumbersome. Corporate
hierarchies are, generally, impervious to FOI requests.
The Reuters organisation, for instance, has been trying,
without success, to gain access to the gunship footage from
the US government through FOI since it appeared on Wikileaks.
Presumably because if the footage remains in the realm of
information gained from “unauthorised” sources, there remains
a certain degree of “deniability” – as opposed to being
granted legal access to the same information which could
be used in a law suit against the government in question.
Not surprisingly, numerous conservatives in
the US have dubbed Julian Assange a terrorist
and have even called for his death . . .
“We should treat Mr. Assange the same way as other high-
value terrorist targets: Kill him,” conservative columnist
Jeffrey T. Kuhner wrote in The Washington Times.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology emeritus
professor, and long-time political activist, Noam
Chomsky has expressed support for Assange and called
the conservative depiction of him “outlandish”.
“ . . . one of the major reasons for government secrecy is
to protect the government from its own population,” Chomsky
said in an interview with the Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman.
Australian ethics professor at Princeton University,
Peter Singer, (who has also expressed support for
Assange’s methods) has said greater transparency
has some bad consequences but that:
“. . . a climate of openness makes it more likely that
governments and corporations will act more ethically.
“In a world in which terrorists have committed
atrocities and threaten to commit more, to seek
complete government transparency is utopian . . .
“Sometimes it is possible to do good only in
secret. Yet on the whole, a more transparent
community is likely to be a better one – and the
same applies to a more transparent world.”
And regarding the warrant for Assange’s arrest in Sweden,
he has attracted a, perhaps, surprising supporter in
the form of longtime feminist activist, Naomi Wolf,
who mocked Interpol’s desire to arrest and charge him,
satirically ‘thanking’ the organization for “engaging in
global manhunts to arrest and prosecute men who behave
like narcissistic jerks to women they are dating”.
“Thank you again, Interpol,” she wrote at the Huffington
Post, “I know you will now prioritise the global manhunt
for 1.3 million guys I have heard similar complaints about
personally in the US alone — there is an entire fraternity
at the University of Texas you need to arrest immediately.”
All this ballyhoo would be rendered redundant if the media
in general, and working journalists, in particular, had
stuck to the time-honoured traditions of (legal) truth-
seeking; if they had remained faithful to the ethical
guidelines upon which their profession was founded. If
their collective conscience had rejected the subversion
of their craft by big business and its bosses.
I know, I know, pie in the sky wishful thinking. And,
at the end of the day, why should you believe anything
I have to say on these issues. I freely admit my biases
- if you haven’t picked up on them already. I’ll leave
notions of objectivity for another day – it’s tricky.
Feel free to occupy my garden – I’ll make some coffee . . .
So, are the people in the Occupy movement merely a bunch
of anarchists who protest for the sake of protesting
or are they making a valid point in the only way
they see that point can be made – given the paucity
of our “legitimate” informational environment?
Is the Tea Party a valid organization that should
be replicated outside the USA? Or is it a sclerotic
group of tax avoiders that has been accused of being
subverted by “the evangelical thought police”?
I tend to the latter myself on that one because their
social agenda is notably lacking in . . . well, anything.
Are the two movements simply the idealistic opposites
of one another – one tokenly “left-wing” and the
other undoubtedly the darlings of the right? So the
media can present them both in the same grab or
column, in some feeble attempt at “balance”?
Why are such comparisons drawn in the first place?
Thanks for asking . . . it’s because we have an enduring
desire to put (other) people in pigeonholes. It makes
it far easier to write them off if what they represent
doesn’t happen to accord with our own beliefs.
Will the Occupy movement, in and of itself, produce
a more just and socially equitable world?
The jury is still out in respect of the
Middle Eastern occupations.
But I fear not.
As Montreal’s The Gazette reported recently:
“Don’t look now, but the zeitgeist is shifting.
Maybe it was the Occupy camp that elected a border
collie as its leader, or the death of a 23-year-
old woman in Vancouver of a drug overdose, or reports
of an alleged sexual assault in Philadelphia, but the
occupation has been steadily losing its cool.
A month after tent cities sprang up throughout
the Western world as sympathetic satellites of
the Occupy Wall Street movement, authorities are
impatient and calling the cops . . .”
omnibus
