[NOTE Due to the continuing media blackout surrounding
the reasons for the protests of the WTO meeting in Seattle, permission is
hereby granted to copy and distribute this entire article on a
not-for-profit basis.]
The WTO, ICANN, and the End of the Republic
Copyright (c) 1999 Jay Fenello -- All rights reserved
Yesterday, I wrote about the media blackout surrounding the protests of
the WTO meeting in Seattle. In response, I got several email stating
that I was *crazy*, that the story *is* being covered, and that it was my
imagination.
What these critics are missing, however, is the methods of media bias,
and how they are being used to hide *why* people are rioting in Seattle and
London, and why workers have gone on strike throughout the world.
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly
limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate
within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident
views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going
on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being
reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate." --
Noam Chomsky, American linguist
Compare for a minute the coverage of the current riots, versus the
shootings at Columbine High, or the crash of Kennedy's plane. While
the latter received immediate and continuous media coverage, the riots have
only received a few minutes of coverage at the top of the newscasts.
And this coverage has been limited to the riots themselves, the damage that
has been done, the reactions of the WTO delegates, and the actions of the
police to prevent a recurrence today.
So while the riots have been the lead story in the news, the reasons for
the riots are conspicuously absent. And the coverage has been
minuscule compared to other less important topics that have recently been
covered.
And yet, most in America still find it hard to believe that the
corporate media can possibly be coordinating a cover up of the WTO
debate. Most still believe that a free press is some kind of
guarantee of a *fair* press.
"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in
America, as an independent press. The business of the journalists is
to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at
the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily
bread. We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the
scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we
dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the
property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
-- John Swinton, Chief of Staff New York Times
"There's a whole journalistic-industrial complex dedicated to
keeping newsprint, TV screens and radio waves clean of destabilizing scoops
damaging to corporations or the state." -- Alexander Cockburn,
journalist
So, why are the protestors rioting?
If we are to believe the Television media, the protests are over
jobs. They have even rolled out some "experts" (like the
president of the Economic Strategy Institute, and a spokesperson for the
Clinton Administration) who have said that the protests are
"bizarre" and based upon the fact that "people are afraid of
change."
But actually, much, much more is at stake. Surprisingly, the
essence of the protests were revealed on Monday when some of the first
broadcasts from Seattle featured a huge banner that read:
Democracy =====>
<============WTO |
And in many ways, this simple banner summarizes the fight, for the very
foundations of the Republic are threatened by the WTO.
In the history of human civilization, the U.S. Constitution represents a
departure from most other forms of government. It places people at the top
of an inverted pyramid, with the government's role to serve the
people. But things are a changing.
Instead of a government for the people, by the people, the WTO is a
government for multinational corporations, by multinational
corporations. The WTO's "Mandatory Dispute Resolution
Process" is one example of how this body can make decisions that
supersede national laws and national sovereignty. It is exactly the
same model that ICANN has fraudulently instituted in its "Uniform
Dispute Resolution Policy."
"[The] media, our top elected official, and our two dominant
political parties rarely criticize the growing power of large corporations
because they are bankrolled by them." -- Nancy Snow, author
So what can be done? First, we must openly acknowledge that the
media is biased, as it is owned by an increasingly smaller base of
corporate entities world-wide. Just to be clear, I fully support the
private ownership of the press, and the biased reporting that
results. What I object to is the continued denial of big media in
admitting to this control, a denial that I consider to be the ultimate form
of false advertising.
"As long as people are marginalized and distracted [they] have no
way to organize or articulate their sentiments, or even know that others
have these sentiments. People assume that they are the only people
with a crazy idea in their heads. They never hear it from anywhere
else. Nobody's supposed to think that. ... Since there's no way to
get together with other people who share or reinforce that view and help
you articulate it, you feel like an oddity, an oddball. So you just
stay on the side and you don't pay any attention to what's going on.
You look at something else, like the Superbowl." -- Noam Chomsky,
American linguist
"One of the intentions of corporate-controlled media is to instill
in people a sense of disempowerment, of immobilization and paralysis.
Its outcome is to turn you into good consumers. It is to keep people
isolated, to feel that there is no possibility for social change."
-- David Barsamian, journalist and publisher
Second, we must take full advantage of the Internet while we still
can. ICANN has an agenda to institute some serious controls over
content, so we must work quickly. Help spread the word, and hold the
media accountable for their coverage, or lack thereof.
"If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate
executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas,
they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers
patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves." --
Howard Zinn, historian and author
"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what
Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda
accomplishments of the dominant political mythology." -- Michael
Parenti, political scientist and author
Finally, we must hold our elected officials accountable to us, the
people, and not the corporate entities who fund their reelection campaigns.
"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this
period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people,
but the appalling silence of the good people." -- Martin Luther
King, Jr.
Be silent no more -- help spread the word.
Until next time . . .
Respectfully,
Jay Fenello,
------------------------------------
http//www.fenello.com "We are creating the most significant new jurisdiction
we've known since the Louisiana purchase, yet we are
building it just outside the constitution's review."
-- Larry Lessig, Harvard Law School, on ICANN
At 0335 AM 12/1/99 , Jay Fenello wrote
>Well, it's 330 a.m. EST, and I have seen very
>little coverage of the riots. It's seems that
>the Pete Rose story is a much higher priority
>topic tonight!
>
>In other words, I'd say were in the midsts of
>another media blackout. For those who missed
>the last one, there is a good summary at
> http://www.icann.org/comments-mail/icann-current/msg00677.html
>
>Consider the situation. We have a World Trade
>Organization meeting in Seattle, one that has
>delegates arriving from over 130 countries of
>the world, one that has been disrupted by riots
>in Seattle.
>
>The riots are so bad that police have reportedly
>fired rubber bullets, and used tear gas and pepper
>spray to disperse the thousands of protesters who
>took to the streets on Tuesday. Riots that were
>so bad that the opening WTO meeting was canceled.
>Riots that were so bad that the mayor of Seattle
>imposed a 7 p.m.-to-dawn curfew, and has called
>out the national guard.
>
>We practically have marshal law in Seattle, and
>yet, the Network news has done very little to
>cover the fiasco.
>
>On my cable system, I get all four networks,
>and I get CNN, CNNFN, CNN Headline News, CNBC,
>MSNBC, and Fox News. After hours of channel
>surfing, I have very little to report. Other
>than the three minute leader that is run at
>the top of the newscasts, I have seen little
>in depth coverage.
>
>[Compare this to the recent coverage given to
>the Kennedy search and rescue. We had non-stop
>coverage on every network for hours and hours,
>with live pictures of the empty ocean, and
>little else to report.]
>
>The media is obviously hiding this story!
>
>One blatant example is the current story running
>on MSNBC http//www.msnbc.com/news/340805.asp#BODY
>It's one of the longest I've seen, yet it doesn't
>even mention why so many people are protesting.
>It's like the question WHY doesn't even exist!
>
>Not only are they hiding it, but they are even
>taking sides. The one in-depth news report that
>I did see was on MSNBC and featured a spokesperson
>for the White House. Unfortunately, she
>characterized the protestors as a confused bunch
>of disparate parties who were all protesting a
>disjunctive and contradictory slate of issues.
>
>Why the bias? -- you ask.
>
>The truth of the matter is that the riots in
>Seattle, the fight over ICANN, and the media
>blackout given to both topics, are all related.
>
>The riots in Seattle are about the loss of U.S.
>sovereignty to multinational corporations, just
>like the Domain Name Wars were about the loss of
>the Internet to the same multinational corporations.
>
>Not possible! -- you say.
>
>Consider that the media is owned by these same
>multinational corporations
>
>"The notion that journalism can regularly produce a product
>that violates the fundamental interests of media owners and
>advertisers ... is absurd."
> -- Robert McChesney, journalist and author
>
>Consider that while knowledgeable people recognize
>the bias of the media in the U.S., the vast majority
>of Americans doubt that it is possible
>
>"The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one
>of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country
>has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media
>all objectivity - much less dissent. "
> -- Gore Vidal, novelist and critic
>
>Consider the implications of this email
>
>"Corporations have been enthroned .... An era of corruption
>in high places will follow and the money power will endeavor
>to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the
>people... until wealth is aggregated in a few hands ...
>and the Republic is destroyed."
> -- Abraham Lincoln
>
>Until next time . . .
>
>Jay. |