<underfire> rouge-economics - political illusions

Wed Nov 1 13:16:38 EST 2006

Are we having this conversation on the net or am I dreaming? The simple fact
that you and I can interact without even knowing each other thanks to the
effort of a group of people who spent months organizing this event is
absolutely great. Now we could not do this reading a newspaper or watching
TV. I have conversation on the net with people all over the world daily,
they tell me what they see and what they hear, we discuss events and
exchange views. I read the news in many web pages I respect, I write for
some of them also. Perhaps I am uncovering through the net a small section
of the truth but it is more than my neighbor is doing by reading the Times
and watching BBC. 

About the historical patter of the media, I did not refer to the 50s, which
was a deeply repressive period in the US, but I remember that a US president
was impeached by two journalists working for the Washington Post. If this is
not good media I have no idea what is good media. In Italy, in 1974 there
was a reporter who unveiled the Mafia dirty dealings with the Christian
Democrats, he was eventually shot, but his stories for months filled the
front page of Corriere della Sera. 

And yes I do have hope for the future otherwise I would not be here writing,

Loretta

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From: underfire-bounces at underfire.eyebeam.org
[mailto:underfire-bounces at underfire.eyebeam.org] On Behalf Of
sdv at krokodile.co.uk
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2006 7:42 PM
To: underfire at underfire.eyebeam.org
Subject: Re: <underfire> rouge-economics - political illusions

Loretta,

The belief that the net is a better place to 'search for the truth' than any
other medium in the mass-media cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. What is
the basis of the assumption that the net is a better medium for 'searching
for truth' than any other aspect of the spectacle ? The final assumption
that you make that a digitized media is somehow going to enable 'us'
(whatever that 'us' might consist of ) to replace the spectacle with truth,
is an assumption that was always recognizably false, it was always more
probable that it will instead become another form of mass-consumption...
(sorry about that)... 

The historical pattern which you present - that the traditional media in the
50s somehow presented a more truthful picture than the present mass-media,
is not supported by the evidence, anymore than the idea that the 'net' is
presenting the truth than the more traditional media... For example implicit
within your suggestion is that the current neo-colonial adventure in Iraq
has been reported less truthfully in the spectacle than earlier neo-colonial
and colonial adventures - which is simply not true.  It's not just that
democracy and consequently militarism has found its perfect foe in
'terrorism' but also that the net has found a perfect subject as well...

The point to remember about the neo-liberal relationship to these types of
events is that they do not require a victory, rather they need to be able to
demonstrate that they are capable of complete and utter destruction with an
acceptable level of loss (1000/500,000 is surely that ?). 

hope ?

best

s

Loretta Napoleoni wrote: 

To answer Christina interesting posting, I believe that information and
images about the reality that surrounds us are readily available. The net,
for example is a great place to search for the truth (and yes at the same
time is full of lies). The problem is that, we, and for we I refer to the
industrialised countries, live inside a web of illusions, market illusions
as well as political illusions created by politicians and post Cold War
politics and broadcast by traditional and mainstream media. 

Let me focus on political illusions. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the
subsequent triumph of Western capitalism, symbolised by the United States,
have triggered a mass euphoria and destroyed any structured political
opposition. The so called 'left' was buried under the falling bricks of the
Berlin Wall. The world we lived in ended. During the Cold War, East and West
existed inside a dichotomy, it was healthy because it reminded us and them
(those who lived in communist countries) that politics and economics are not
exact sciences and that politicians make mistakes. Above all it made people
more receptive to political change, in the West it was alternative
government, in the East the end of communism. After the end of the Cold War
Western politicians became infallible and opposition vanished. Tony Blair
politics are even more conservative than the politics of Mrs.Thatcher, a
Thatcher's government would never have abolished the Habeas Corpus, it would
have been inconceivable! But the Conservative party will not oppose someone
who pursues its own politics, in fact Tony Blair sole opposition comes from
its own party, from the left of the Labour party. Blair lied to the nation,
yet, nobody is holding him responsible for such an act, why? Because the
opposition comes from the Labour party and they will not impeach their Prime
Minister. I must stress that several countries went to war in Iraq without
any proof of WMD, parliaments were bypassed on the basis of 'security'.
British Parliament was told that proofs could not be showed because of
security reasons, members of parliaments had to trust the Prime Minister.

Against this scenario, I agree, the media had done an appalling job in
reporting the truth.  But if you look at what the media is today you will
discover that it is very very different from the traditional media of the
1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Journalists and politicians are often 'friends',
they socialised together because they need each other. The media is owned by
large corporations, see Murdoch, who are allies of politicians, therefore
the support of politicians is crucial for journalists to pursue a career
inside their own organization. This incestuous relationship is at the root
of the failure of the media to report the truth. 

What is the role of the citizen? How can people grasp what is happening if
politicians lied to parliament and the media support their lies? This is a
world where people are trapped inside something similar to the Matrix, they
believe to live in an idyllic world, while in reality they live inside a web
of illusions. How can you break through such illusions? The net is perhaps
the most powerful tool 'to see the light'. I have written a book on al
Zarqawi and I have conducted many interviews on the net. The problem is, of
course, sorting truth from fiction, but the alternative is pure fiction. In
February 2003, after Powell speech at the UN, the New York Times and all the
main papers reported that al Zarqawi was al Qaeda's man in Iraq. Had those
journalists done their job properly, they would have known that even kids in
the Arab world thought that it was a joke. Osama bin Laden and Saddam
Hussein were enemies! A simple knowledge of the Middle East could have been
sufficient to discover that Powell's picture of al Zarqawi was a lie. So the
net is better because with fiction has facts. The problem is that people
have to spend time searching for the truth and most people have no time or
inclination to do that. They are so used to have their intake of news from
the TV, the radio or the papers, which are readily available everywhere.
They are also too preoccupied to make ends meet, as I pointed put in my
previous posting. If you have to find a way to pay your bills, you have no
time or willingness to find out the truth about the world!

How to bypass these difficulties? I believe that digitalised media, which is
the future of mainstream media, will do the trick. In less than a decade we
will not have TV screen but plasma videos and speakers linked to our
computer. At that point people will be able to watch CNN international and
Guerrilla TV from Seattle by simply changing channel. Ironically, technology
is working against traditional and mainstream media. So there is hope!

Loretta Napoleoni

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