Slashdot Mirror

I was hitting the BBC site when this war hit, when the irony of using them as an "aternative" news source hit me.

I've been reading a lot on ZMag (http://www.zmag.org), and again, skepticism is somewhat required.

As I watch CNN and MSNBC, it keeps striking me how very caucasian and Christian every single bit of it is -- from the anchors to the guests to the correspondents to the ",ilitary experts"....

Where are the Islamic Americans? Where's (God forgive me for saying this) Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam? Where are the Jews in support of Israel? Are we doomed to only hear the Christian caucasian outlook on this whole debacle?

Granted, it's par for the course with American media, but honestly, I thought that with the whole nation in an uproar, we might hear a few new voices....

American State Terrorism

But as the original ISP told the webmaster of the website above: "If you want free speech you can go down to a street corner and shout."

Also for some really good stuff check out the Chmosky archive at zmag.org

Why we oppose the war in Afghanistan

U.S. Military Drafted Plans to Terrorize U.S. Cities to Provoke War With Cuba

American Media Uses Disinformation To Guide Policy : Corporations Have More Say Than Bush On Foreign Affairs

Is bin Laden a terrorist mastermind -- or a fall guy?

An Elevator Ride Down the Twin Towers of Inferno

The wickedness and awesome cruelty of a crushed and humiliated people

Inevitable ring to the unimaginable

"The price is worth it"

Why we oppose the war in Afghanistan

U.S. Military Drafted Plans to Terrorize U.S. Cities to Provoke War With Cuba

American Media Uses Disinformation To Guide Policy : Corporations Have More Say Than Bush On Foreign Affairs

Is bin Laden a terrorist mastermind -- or a fall guy?

An Elevator Ride Down the Twin Towers of Inferno

The wickedness and awesome cruelty of a crushed and humiliated people

Inevitable ring to the unimaginable

"The price is worth it"

Read Noam Chomsky, "What Uncle Sam Really Wants."

What we need, instead of a police state, is people in government who actually believe and follow the principles of the constitution and bill of rights, and who follow those principles abroad as well as at home.

Vote Green.

The United States government supported Osama bin Laden. We funded, armed and trained his forces, both in war and terrorism. We helped build his terrorist army to fight a superpower, the Soviet Union. I don't like communism, but our politicians created a monster in Afghanistan. Now it seems that monster has attacked us.

Those that are now protesting against the bombing in Afghanistan condemned the Taliban long before tragedy of September 11. And yet the United States continued to fund them through May of this year.

• The United States Supported Pinochet.
• The United States Supported Saddam Hussein, even after he used nerve gas on his own people in 1988.
• And the United States supported the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.
• Even today the United States trains people in torture and terrorism at The School of the Americas.

I do think that something should be done about the Taliban's tyranny, but you have to realize that the Afghans are the first victims, not our enemies.

If we are really to put an end to terrorism we must stop our politicians from creating terrorists in the first place.

The United States government supported Osama bin Laden. We funded, armed and trained his forces, both in war and terrorism. We helped build his terrorist army to fight a superpower, the Soviet Union. I don't like communism, but our politicians created a monster in Afghanistan. Now it seems that monster has attacked us.

Those that are now protesting against the bombing in Afghanistan condemned the Taliban long before tragedy of September 11. And yet the United States continued to fund them through May of this year.

• The United States Supported Pinochet.
• The United States Supported Saddam Hussein, even after he used nerve gas on his own people in 1988.
• And the United States supported the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.
• Even today the United States trains people in torture and terrorism at The School of the Americas.

I do think that something should be done about the Taliban's tyranny, but you have to realize that the Afghans are the first victims, not our enemies.

If we are really to put an end to terrorism we must stop our politicians from creating terrorists in the first place.

Read zmag.org's list of US interventions in the past 100 years and get a clue.

One more thing, if you want people to take the dangerous of Microsoft seriously, then refer to them as Microsoft. If you choose some bastardization of their name, people will immediately write you off and not even pretend to think about what your saying.

I disagree, in fact Id say that is absolutely untrue. By bastardizing the Microshaft name, we very intentionally use their massive marketing muscle against them.

Doing these association techniques we are purposefully meddling with their mind control program (marketing) by dropping their name proper and forcing people to read "MS" but see "M$", or read Microsoft but see/think "Macroshaft".

Go read a little about memetics, culture jamming and propaganda. Then move on to some Chomsky

It is very usefull vaccine to the marketing mess they blast at humanity.

First, I think Salon is pretty cool. I frequently surf to the front page. Less frequently to the articles. I like it, but not enough to contribute. Why? Because the portal I *do* contribute to is znet. I actually feel passionately about the material on there, and I want them to succeed. Even though they have never had any ads. But zmag is a niche market, with about a million hits a month. Big enough, but not in the Salon category. I think this is Salon's problem: they want to be both a mass media portal, as well as sufficiently "alternative" to convince their advocates to pay. But you can't be both. I think Salon has recruited about as many paying subscribers as they're gonna get, which is quite a lot for a niche player, but not enough for a major media franchise. They want to be both. They want to be the "New Yorker" of the net. But even the New Yorker has been bleeding red ink, and I don't the economics of the net can sustain this.

There are simply too many other destinations which offer poeple exactly what they want in the way of their own personal hot button issues. It's these issues that make people excited enough to fork out the dough. But by definition, all of those sites are small.

The shortage of choice and a more uniform culture which allowed publications like the Atlantic and The New Yorker to thrive in the past will not be repeated on the net.

You know the drill: They have a bunch of felons at large. Rather than try to serve warrants on them singly, they just send out a mailer. "Congratulations! You'vewon tickets to the Superbowl! Now all you have to do to claim your prize is show up at the stadium on such and such a date and get your picture taken!" And the dumb 'cons' fall for it every time... So go ahead, send them your resumes. Then they'll know where you live and can drag you in for questioning any time they want.

Besides, is this something you want to be supporting?

You imply that having the government reading your and everyone else's email will greatly reduce these attacks. That is an unsupported assertion and likely false (especially if terrorists know email is heavily monitored). So you would likely give up your privacy for nothing. Worse, by supporting extensive government monitoring of your actions you risk creating an even stronger police state (with selective enforcement of laws at the whim of those in power) and you risk corrupt government officials or employees using knowledge about you gained through such extensive one-way surveillance for private criminal gain or to satisfy a perverse need to interfere in other people's lives. Note that other laws are simultaneously being proposed to increase government secrecy -- so the monitoring is all one way, thus increasing government power while decreasing government accountability.

The best way to reduce terrorism is to reduce poverty, ignorance, and injustice worldwide that provides support for extremists in movements which leads to the creation of terrorists through cycles of violence (most would-be-terrorists otherwise might just be isolated sociopathic individuals in a society wealth enough to humanely deal with them). For more background: http://www.zmag.org/reactionscalam.htm

...is to impose their own brand of censorship. That way they don't have to run the risk of embarassing articles such as this one being read by thinking individuals.

here is a good start. Note that this barely scratches the surface. Read more articles at zmag.org

for all of you shouting "bomb Afghanistan!!".
I don't know if it's allready posted but is a nice writing by an American/Afgan dude...
It's true as hell!!!

http://www.zmag.org/ansarycalam.htm

Here's the link: http://www.zmag.org/ansarycalam.htm

People all over the Middle East hate the US. Now, who believes that the US is really hated because of its supposed Freedom? How about because it's not a muslim country? I hardly think these issues can really galvanize an entire region in such a fashion, and I think other reasons point to why the ME is such a breeding ground for terrorists. Oil is energy, and energy is wealth. Where has that wealth gone? Is it invested in the countries of the ME? If so, why are people so poor and upset? Why is the ME dominated by dictatorships?

After the fall of the Ottoman empire (during WWI), France and Britain divided up the region and installed "facades", basically dictatorships that would be heavily influenced by their patrons. When Iran in the 50s tried to nationalize its oil, the CIA intervened and installed the Shah. That lasted until the Shah was deposed by religious extremists 1979, and a failed coup attempt by the Carter administration left the extremists in power. I think you can argue that the Shah's rule encouraged the growth of anti-US factions in the region.

The issues here are keeping Arab nationalism in check, which in turn insures that the US will maintain heavy influence over the region's oil. In addition, the US's energy policy (influenced by automobile manufacturers, oil companies, and others) maintains a dependence on ME oil (about 50%). This is seen as a national security issue, as can be demonstrated by the Gulf War action.

Now, if you link the WTO attack with Arab nationalism, then you may see that you have "terrorists" all over the ME. This is why I expect the US to promote quite a few "police actions" in the ME in the near future.

Some interesting sources for information:

Frontline: Hunting Bin Ladin (being shown on PBS throughout the week at night)

Frontline: The Politics of Power (influencing US Energy Policy)

Noam Chomsky talk: (peace in the Middle East) Noam Chomsky talk: (peace in the Middle East)

I do not think the future bodes well...

For some left-wing commentary from a variety of sources, here is Z Magazine's coverage. You might also check the BBC for more hard news, although their take isn't that different from CNN, et. al.

the people on the front line

Yeah, fighting against time, the battle of helping the victim still rages on.

I don't think these brave folks have any appetite for this talk. Those who have seen the horror first hand just want it to STOP.

Morris goes on to list his estimates of the non-American bodycount of various US military interventions and proposes essentially Bucky Fuller's world game proposal of spending a fraction of the US military budget to make the world a happy and healthier place less likely to spawn terrorists.

Morris goes on to list his estimates of the non-American bodycount of various US military interventions and proposes essentially Bucky Fuller's world game proposal of spending a fraction of the US military budget to make the world a happy and healthier place less likely to spawn terrorists.

Morris goes on to list his estimates of the non-American bodycount of various US military interventions and proposes essentially Bucky Fuller's world game proposal of spending a fraction of the US military budget to make the world a happy and healthier place less likely to spawn terrorists.

Yes, Osama bin Laden said something like this. However, he is not the source. U.S. senator from Oregon Wayne Morse said this in 1964. He was arguing against the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Why does a Saudi Arabian like bin Laden care about the activities of the U.S.? In interviews, he has said that he is against the U.S. support for what he considers to be a corrupt Saudi Arabian government. I certainly would be unlikely to give credibility to anything bin Laden said. However, Saudi Arabian friends have privately made similar criticisms. That's what made me take notice.

Mostly, however, I have little independent knowledge of news events. Like everyone, I depend on news sources. I thought that the September 13, 2001 PBS TV show about these issues was interesting. Here is a quote from a transcript of the show "Hunting bin Laden":

"NARRATOR: Muslim fundamentalists say that America's alliance with King Fahd is akin to America's disastrous alliance with the Shah of Iran. When King Fahd, like the Shah, is forced from power, they say, Americans will be on the wrong side of history."

and here's another quote:

"NARRATOR: Already, critics of the Saudi government point out the king has managed to turn the world's largest oil producer into a debtor nation."

People like bin Laden say that the U.S. government is supporting a corrupt dictatorship. Is there a lie in this? The U.S. government is supporting an anti-democratic government. The terrorists say this is the reason they feel motivated to terrorism.

My own opinion is that I think the initiators of violence are crazy, mentally decentered. However, if Americans support U.S. independence from England in 1776, they might also be sympathetic to other people's desire to have representational government.

Please consider what the narrator of the PBS show said again: Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil-producing nation, with only 14,000,000 inhabitants, actually owes money.

I have absolutely zero sympathy for terrorist violence. However, the situation is so black and white that it is difficult not to think that there is some truth in the terrorist's complaints.

In 1967 I was hitch-hiking on Ta Khli Air Base in Thailand. A U.S. pilot who was flying daily bombing missions to Hanoi gave me a ride. He told me he thought the bombing of Hanoi was pointless. He said that Hanoi was almost always covered with fog, and that he could not see what he was bombing. So, don't feel that you are having a radical viewpoint if you oppose U.S. military or political involvement. Plenty of others have come before you. In a democracy, it is the citizens' responsibility to think independently and make their views known.

I've turned off my television and stopped visiting CNN.com and all the rest of the mainstream media outlets. I'm becoming extremely disturbed by the direction which they've been heading since rougly 20 minutes after the second plane hit, and (as I recall) even before the first WTC tower fell.

The talk is of reprisal, and how the United States is going to respond to the attacks. Granted, nothing can justify what has happened, and there is no rationalization for what was done. However, could we perhaps get a bit wider perspective or perhaps even some critical thought/discussion regarding what has happened from CNN?

Today there was a poll on CNN.com that makes my point perfectly: "If Afghanistan refuses to hand over Osama bin Laden, should the U.S. bomb Kabul?" 79% of respondents said yes, we should bomb Kabul.

Hello, my fellow citizens! The people of Afghanistan are currently living under the tyrannical rule of the Taliban, having just come out of a long and very punishing war with the former Soviet Union. Not only has all the major infrastructure *already* been bombed, but the people are suffering tremendously as it currently stands.

Even more to the point, what could "we" possibly gain by bombing Kabul, which is a CITY full of CIVILIANS, after all? Does it make any difference whether it's a cruise missle or jetliner causing the explosion? Do you think the Taliban government, the only ones with access to food and equipment, will still be in Kabul when the bombs start to drop? Hardly--they'll be off in the hills with bin Laden, and the only people left to suffer the brunt of such an assault would be the civilian population.

The point I'm trying to make is that the mainstream media is so caught up in the idea that we could bomb Afghanistan that they've forgotten whether or not we should. After all, the only real way that we'll get bin Laden (or whomever is responsible for these crimes) out is by _going_in_after_them_. That will cost American and NATO lives. And, it can be aruged that it runs the high risk of polarizing other Muslim nations against what they could only perceive as an invasion by the West.
And if you've actually read anything about what bin Laden is trying to accomplish with his terrorist agenda, it's EXACTLY that--a world war between Islam and the West. And remember, Pakistan has nuclear bombs at their disposal.

Where is there any discussion of these facts in the mainstream media? That is what I truly fear, more than anything else. The manufacturing of our consent to what amounts to acts of genocide against civilian populations--and that ultimately leads to only greater and greater violence.

Try: http://www.zmag.org

This is such an obvious and sensible objection that it makes me wonder. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that a large part of the U.S. government no longer serves the purpose of democracy. The war may be, not on terrorists, but on the American people. My guess is that it is not conspiracy, but widespread government corruption.

That's the only conclusion that supports all the information. For example, the U.S. CIA trained Osama bin Laden. See the 1998 MSNBC article referenced in the first paragraph of What should be the response to violence? where I've tried to pull together some of the facts.

Whenever there is a problem, there seem to be two situations that go together: 1) The U.S. government intelligence agencies say they did not foresee the problem, and 2) the intelligence agencies had a years-long prior involvement with the person who caused the problem. Osama bin Laden is one example of this.

Another example is General Noriega of Panama who had a working relationship with the U.S. CIA for years before he was accused of drug trafficking. Was the exposure of Noriega caused by his not taking orders? A quick Google search on "Noriega General Panama CIA" gave a link to a chapter in a book by Noam Chomsky, The invasion of Panama. Chomsky's book is called What Uncle Sam Really Wants.

Another link on the first Google page was, The Real Drug Lords, A brief history of CIA involvement in the Drug Trade by William Blum.

This is such an obvious and sensible objection that it makes me wonder. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that a large part of the U.S. government no longer serves the purpose of democracy. The war may be, not on terrorists, but on the American people. My guess is that it is not conspiracy, but widespread government corruption.

That's the only conclusion that supports all the information. For example, the U.S. CIA trained Osama bin Laden. See the 1998 MSNBC article referenced in the first paragraph of What should be the response to violence? where I've tried to pull together some of the facts.

Whenever there is a problem, there seem to be two situations that go together: 1) The U.S. government intelligence agencies say they did not foresee the problem, and 2) the intelligence agencies had a years-long prior involvement with the person who caused the problem. Osama bin Laden is one example of this.

Another example is General Noriega of Panama who had a working relationship with the U.S. CIA for years before he was accused of drug trafficking. Was the exposure of Noriega caused by his not taking orders? A quick Google search on "Noriega General Panama CIA" gave a link to a chapter in a book by Noam Chomsky, The invasion of Panama. Chomsky's book is called What Uncle Sam Really Wants.

Another link on the first Google page was, The Real Drug Lords, A brief history of CIA involvement in the Drug Trade by William Blum.

The terrorist attacks were major atrocities. In scale they may not reach the level of many others, for example, Clinton's bombing of the Sudan with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and killing unknown numbers of people (no one knows, because the US blocked an inquiry at the UN and no one cares to pursue it).

He thinks that the attacks on the world trade center were not a isolated action. They were actually a revenge.

The Awesome Cruelty of a Doomed People
Blowback
Terrorism, Television, and the Rage for Vengeance

For some background on Israel - try this for example: America's Last Taboo (Edward Said)

More at ZNet.

Please post more links to analysis as you find them! From whatever perspective. This is a much neglected issue.

The Awesome Cruelty of a Doomed People
Blowback
Terrorism, Television, and the Rage for Vengeance

For some background on Israel - try this for example: America's Last Taboo (Edward Said)

More at ZNet.

Please post more links to analysis as you find them! From whatever perspective. This is a much neglected issue.

The Awesome Cruelty of a Doomed People
Blowback
Terrorism, Television, and the Rage for Vengeance

For some background on Israel - try this for example: America's Last Taboo (Edward Said)

More at ZNet.

Please post more links to analysis as you find them! From whatever perspective. This is a much neglected issue.

The Awesome Cruelty of a Doomed People
Blowback
Terrorism, Television, and the Rage for Vengeance

For some background on Israel - try this for example: America's Last Taboo (Edward Said)

More at ZNet.

Please post more links to analysis as you find them! From whatever perspective. This is a much neglected issue.

The Awesome Cruelty of a Doomed People
Blowback
Terrorism, Television, and the Rage for Vengeance

For some background on Israel - try this for example: America's Last Taboo (Edward Said)

More at ZNet.

Please post more links to analysis as you find them! From whatever perspective. This is a much neglected issue.

"Terror Attacks: New to us, not to Afghans"

by James Ingalls

Like a subliminal "Wanted" poster, TV newscasts flash images of the destroyed Twin Towers, followed at longer intervals by the face of Osama bin Laden. The disclaimer that we still have no idea who is responsible for the brutal attacks in Manhattan, Washington, and Pittsburgh seems weak in comparison with this visual "evidence". Unlikely to be accorded anything approaching due process, the suspect of the decade will probably find his interests under violent attack by the US and NATO within the next few days. It is too much to hope for no civilian casualties, as GW Bush fulfils his promise to "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbored them," implying that the people of Afghanistan will soon be subjected to aerial bombardment. The US will likely "validate...the logic of terrorism" (Human Rights Watch), following the dictum that violence and terror are the proper responses to violence and terror.

Michael Sheehan, the State Department's Counterterrorism Coordinator, has made a big deal about a "geographic shift" in terrorist activity from the Middle East to South Asia. Sheehan attributes the shift to the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s: "This war destroyed the government and civil society of Afghanistan, at the same time bringing arms, fighters from around the world, and narcotics traffickers to the region." Sheehan eliminates any trace of human involvement--"this war" brought arms, fighters, and narco-traffickers to Afghanistan, destroying civil society. What Washington tends to conveniently ignore is that bin Laden and the rest of the extremist terrorists empowered to fight in Afghanistan were taught "the logic of terrorism" by our own Central Intelligence Agency.

The CIA assembled a terror network that remains a cause of misery worldwide. CIA Director William Casey called it "the kind of thing we should be doing." According to standard sources, aid to extremist groups in Afghanistan was a response to the Soviet invasion. The truth is that President Carter gave the green light for covert support to the Mujaheddin six months _before_ the December 1979 invasion. In the words of then National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, a major architect of Carter's policy, they were "drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap." The US supported seven fundamentalist extremist groups throughout the 1980s and into the early 90s with cash, sophisticated weapons, and training to the tune of $5 billion--according to official figures. The secret Black Budget of the CIA reportedly quadrupled to $36 billion per year when Reagan became president in 1980, and some of this money went to support secret operations in Afghanistan. Some of the earliest training exercises took place inside the US, including rifle shooting at the High Rock gun club in Naugtuck, Connecticut. More technical training took place at the CIA's Camp Peary, nicknamed "The Farm," northeast of Williamsburg, Virginia. Among the topics covered by training sessions were surveillance and countersurveillance, counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics and paramilitary operations.

Around the same time, a source of private funding was sought for the war. Osama bin Laden, a man with "impeccable Saudi credentials" (his father's construction company had just been awarded a contract to rebuild and restore the holy sites in Mecca and Medina) was given "free rein in Afghanistan" by the CIA. Using his share of his family's business empire, he built training camps and airplane landing strips, and carved underground bunkers in the mountains of Afghanistan, all with Washington's approval. Just across the border, bin Laden's base in Pakistan was the Binoori mosque in Karachi. The prayer leader at this mosque was one Mullah Mohammed Omar, now "supreme leader" of the Taliban.

After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the Mujaheddin groups began turning their US-supplied weapons on each other, and on the civilian population of Afghanistan. In 1990, the CIA began supplying the Mujaheddin directly, rather than using Pakistan's ISI intelligence service as a conduit. According to then chief of ISI's Afghanistan branch, Mohammad Youssaf, the CIA's aim was to "play on differences between the various factions and their commanders," in an effort to "curb the power" of the factions and make way for an unknown "Transition Regime," perhaps the Taliban.

The CIA's propping up of the fundamentalist terrorists in Afghanistan began to show its consequences during this period. The first victims were the people of Afghanistan. The group getting the most US aid, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, began rocket shelling Kabul. A close friend of bin Laden, Hekmatyar was understood by his benefactors to be "a nut, an extremist, and a very violent man" (US ambassador to Afghanistan Robert Neumann). In the 1970s he gained notoriety for throwing acid on the faces of women who refused to wear the veil. Journalist Michael Griffin writes of Kabul under Hekmatyar's onslaught: "no city since the end of the Second World War - except Sarajevo - had suffered the same ferocity of jugular violence as Kabul from 1992 to 1996. Sarajevo was almost a side-show by comparison and, at least, it wasn't forgotten." From 1990-1994 45,000 civilians were killed, 300,000 had fled to Pakistan, and Kabul was "turned into a rubble resembling Dresden after the fire-bombing." Most Afghans are now without livelihood, reduced to begging from international aid agencies. They currently live under the fascistic Taliban, who keep bin Laden safe.

Terrorists trained and armed by the CIA to fight in Afghanistan have since been implicated in attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993, and in US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, which killed hundreds of people. These efforts pale in comparison to the recent destruction in Manhattan, Washington, and Pittsburgh. If proven guilty in fair trial, bin Laden should certainly be held accountable. But the Afghan people, no strangers to the terrorism of bin Laden and his friends, should not be made to pay further for the consequences of our actions. It was our officials who originally unleashed these forces of destruction on Afghanistan. Perhaps the faces of Zbigniew Brzezinski, William Casey, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan should be on the TV screen too, next to Osama bin Laden's and the empty holes in the ground where twin towers stood.

The author is on the Board of Directors of the Afghan Women's Mission, and is a Staff Scientist at the California Institute of Technology.

Everything is biased, but: Indymedia and Z Magazine are better than some.

trying to sneak this sort of crap past consumers.

Well there you have the *real* crux of the problem. When see your involvement in this world, and the art you appreciate, as a function of being a consumer then they have you. When you stop to realize, that you are allowing your community, your government to enforce/condone and prosecute based on these kinds of fascist-business laws (intellectual property laws in general) you are in for a very serious uphill battle.

These publishing houses, *MUST* be made accountable to the public they wish to serve. They must not collude (RIAA) to abridge the rights of citizens.

If you think that your 'voting with your dollars' will make change - forget it. This is the way the USA presently works, and it really only works if you have *LOTS AND LOTS* of dollars. Otherwise you have no rights - your rights only exist in relation to your function in the economy.

Thats just plain wrong. The USA is a Plutocracy, and crap like this (extortion of people in the marketplace) is allowed to persist - you can forget about any 'human rights' and Really start considering yourself a consumer instead of a citizen .

Whats my point? Please dont call yourself a "consumer", and dont call me a "consumer" when you do so you give up your power in the struggle, you accept the pretence (above) as being the frame of debate (the 'playing field' or 'perspective') to those who will justify this type of corporate action in the name of 'free markets' (etc), and you re-enforce the myriad of propaganda-enforced memes and words used in your culture. The last 15 years the USA has been bombarded with images/language and crap that tells its citizens they are 'consumers' their involvment in the world around them is embodied in the way they shop - this is a terribly impotent position. When faced with the power struggle that is described in this article, the corporate interests will *always* be served when you accept the master|corporation|king|church - slave|consumer|fife|congregation relationship.

If you think it dosnt matter; your wrong, go read some Chomsky.

"Other countries can produce the drugs. And under earlier patent regimes, you had process patents. I don't even know if those are legitimate, but process patents meant that if some pharmaceutical company figured out a way to produce a drug, somebody smarter could figure out a better way to produce it because all that was patented was the process. So, if the Brazilian pharmaceutical industry figured out a way to make it cheaper and better, fine, they could do it. It wouldn't violate patents. The World Trade Organization regime insists instead on product patents, so you can't figure out a smarter process. Notice that impedes growth, and development and is intended to. It's intended to cut back innovation, growth, and development and to maintain extremely high profits."

Through the escalation of the WTO protest response, you can see the elites are indeed scared, and with good reason. The above article is a coded incitement to violent protest, because only violence (in the view of the author) will frighten elites and effect change.

Is it any wonder the cops react as they do?

D

Give me an example where the protesters and the authorities were peacfull that had an impact. Yes Gahndi and MLK eschewed violence, but they most definately courted violence. In the early 60s when police turned dogs and firehoses loose on freedom riders the media was all over it. Birmingham, Selma, Montgomery, Memphis... made headlines due to the violence. When the Freedom Riders got to Albany Georgia in December of 1961 police chief Laurie Pritchett did not let his forces get out of controll and the event got virtualy no coverage. What coverage it did get lauded Chief Pritchett for his work although he arrested every single protester that showed up and tried to practice their constitutional rights of free speach and assembly... but he did it peacefully.

You can tell today, only very scanty info on Albany can be found (here for instance) but you can get photos of the Montgomery (police) riots all over the internet. Today it is even worse, when is the last time you saw a big peacefull protest covered like they do these riots? The big media do not want the protester's grievances to be aired, that must be fought by giving them news so compelling that their greed for viewers/readers overcomes their corporate loyalties, and that, unfortunately, means busting heads and blowing shit up.

BTW, I agree completely with the rest of your comment.

To quote:

"The real strategy is to introduce so much genetic pollution in the food system that meeting the consumer demand for GM-Free is seen as not possible. The idea, quite simply, is to pollute faster than countries can legislate - then change the laws to fit the contamination.

A few reports from the front lines of this invisible war.

In April, Monsanto recalled about 10 percent of the GM canola seeds it had distributed in Canada because of reports that the seeds had been contaminated by another modified rape-seed variety, one not approved for export. The most well-known of these cases is StarLink corn. The genetically altered crop (meant for animals and deemed unfit for humans) made its way into much of the U.S. corn supply after the buffer zones surrounding the fields where it was grown proved wholly incapable of containing the wind-borne pollen. Aventis, which owns the StarLink patent, proposed a solution: instead of recalling the corn, why not approve its consumption for humans?"

Manufacturing Consent

Ewige Blumenkraft!

Another thing to keep in mind with the mainstream American media is what they mean by both sides. Watching the Fox News Channel and hearing their "liberal" on the show (Hannity & Colmes I believe) say "Obviously we're all for free trade" does enormous damage (you can find more moderated examples of this in most mainstream coverage, Fox is just the most blatant example). Not only does this not actually give both "sides" (and we must be careful here, there are always more than two sides) but it makes the viewer think they have heard both sides, thus shaping the terms of the debate such that any funamental questioning or alternatives are totally absent, and presumed not to exist at all. I'd suggest you head over to Znet if you want an example of good alternative journalism. Sorry for the length and all the parentheticals, but this is a topic worthy of books worth of discussion.

As to the whole rich vs. everyone else syndrome, you have to remember that they are typically working, even if unaware of it, from the Marxist analysis of class strugle. On the other hand, if you look at the mainstream media, they work from the assumption that the CEO and the factory worker have the same interests. Both views are overly simplistic. Then again, most good alternative media tends to have more complex sociological analyses than rich v. poor, so you do get a more honest attempt to actually analyze what the major causes of problems are, albeit from a progressive slant.

Well, on that ambiguous note, I will once again reiterate that the best thing to do is read everything (books from the sociology and political science section of your bookstore are great background material), and come to your own conclusions. Just don't assume that any one source is giving you the whole story, because they never are.

Ok--now go read about the deaths of 80 innocent civilians in their own homes at the hands of US Defense and the FBI in 1993; read how the United States is the world leader in incarceration, with many of the jailed being casualties of the War on Drugs; read about the victims of racial profiling in the US ("Driving while black"); read about prison labour in the United States; or police brutality; perhaps even the many violations of international law by the United States.

Go read all of those links (and while you're at it, brush up on your history; for instance, slavery in the United States), and come back and tell me that you welcome the US as a power any more than China. Take off your rose-coloured US-media-manipulated glasses, and realize that America is as affected by propaganda convincing its citizens that their country faultless as China is.

Really? Do you fail to note the incredible 90+% of media is controlled by 6 companies in the US? The news outlets that are being bought by the likes of Disney and GE? That the editor of the LA Times talks about taking a bazooka to the wall between marketing and editorial? Advertisers making demands to content providers?

Documenting the corporitization of the media and the risks to society that entails is beyond the scope of this comment :) However, that Mr. Shirky can so easily dismis these concerns without even acknowledging these issues gives me pause. If you'd like to learn about the corporitization of the media I suggest you check out Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Manufacturing Consent (documentary) by Noam Chomsky, and Rich Media, Poor Democracy by Robert McChesney.

On the topic of the media and Seattle protests, the mainstream media did not cover globalization issues at all prior to the protests. Virtually, all coverage of globalization was confined to the business pages for whom the terms of globalization were already written. There were no discussions of human rights and labor issues of globalization. Activists organizing for Seattle recognized this and saw the need to create their own media. Hence, Indymedia was born and now there are 40 spread throughout the world.

Indymedia - become the media

Really? Do you fail to note the incredible 90+% of media is controlled by 6 companies in the US? The news outlets that are being bought by the likes of Disney and GE? That the editor of the LA Times talks about taking a bazooka to the wall between marketing and editorial? Advertisers making demands to content providers?

Documenting the corporitization of the media and the risks to society that entails is beyond the scope of this comment :) However, that Mr. Shirky can so easily dismis these concerns without even acknowledging these issues gives me pause. If you'd like to learn about the corporitization of the media I suggest you check out Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Manufacturing Consent (documentary) by Noam Chomsky, and Rich Media, Poor Democracy by Robert McChesney.

On the topic of the media and Seattle protests, the mainstream media did not cover globalization issues at all prior to the protests. Virtually, all coverage of globalization was confined to the business pages for whom the terms of globalization were already written. There were no discussions of human rights and labor issues of globalization. Activists organizing for Seattle recognized this and saw the need to create their own media. Hence, Indymedia was born and now there are 40 spread throughout the world.

Indymedia - become the media

A good site is Znet, Kosovo. They have many articals posted about that recent bombing.

In my opinion US foreign policy is evil and the only reason it is allowed to go on is because people don't know about it. We condemn the atrocities of some (like Kosovo), but finance the atrocities of other (like in Turkey). And does anyone know why we made a no-fly zone in Iraq? And still have it? And sabotaged the weapon-inspector program by putting spies in it? And were orginally supporting Iraq? And Pinochet? And a host of other despots?

Anyways, don't decide this based purly in economic terms.

The question is not whether it is possible for everyone to gain from an economy. As someone who posted before me so aptly put it, the goal of redistribution of wealth is precisely for everyone to gain. However we do need to be aware of the fact that in our world today, the economic gain of some is overwhelmingly a result of economic loss of others. There are many ways to go about changing this, some of which have been practiced with some success, others are being formulated or being striven towards. For a good discussion on one such effort take a look at Michael Albert's (of Znet) ParEcon project page.

http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/9805-micros oft.html

With apologies to Blair et al, there is a third option regarding "Internet vetting." I will preface this by saying that I agree with the author that there should be some kind of system to rate and interpret information. Although the raters would have some kind of control, this kind of system would allow for people who are not independent experts to get first time information from the Internet, rather than just confirming things read in far more exclusive venues of knowledge.

Ok, here is the third alternative between government and corporate control:

Popular control.

The reason we have government and corporations fighting over the domination of the Internet is most easily illustrated by imagining two lion prides fighting over a water hole while antelopes and zebras die of thirst. Although everyone, including the lions, would benefit from free access to the water for the zebras, only the lions are strong enough to wage the war.

In the case of information on the Internet, the entire system is organized towards marketing; the most valuable information, such as that on Lexis, is for pay. But, as many slashdotters are aware, freedom of information would encourage innovation.

How do we do it?

Michael Albert and others have outlined models of participatory economics (parecon) which rightly puts a high premium on knowledge, and the organization of knowledge, as something which is of very high value and is very political.

It also requires that experts abandon intellectual property and the exclusive rights accorded thereby, instead making propsperity dependent on free and easily accessible information for all people.

The model of educated, democratic input works on a small or a large scale, in capitalist or socialist economic systems, or as an economic system.

Sorry for the overly theoretical response, but I do not know enough about indexing, databases, or networks to be technical on this issue.

In depth information about the WTO

As for your generalization concerning the looting. Can you imagine 50,000 pissed off linux users protesting copy protection on Har drives on the streets of Seattle? Can you imagine an army of cops in battle gear who think that you are the epitomy of evil? Can you imagine 20 to 30 people out of the 50,000 misbehaving? That's what happened in Seattle. The media mischaracerized practically everything about the protests in Seattle in order to make the WTO look good. The thoughts and opinions protesting in the streeets where effectively marginalized by the focus on the few incidents of property damage. What if the seeds your family has grown for centuriesm were being patented by Monsanto and Backed by the WTO?

NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION

If you're really interested in reading up on this stuff, here's an interesting article written by Noam Chomsky. It's at the very least an interesting read for opposing opinions: http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9804-rogue.h tml