Ani says:
open fire on hollywood
open fire on MTV
open fire on NBC
and CBS and ABC
open fire on the NRA
and all the lies they told us
along the way
open fire on each weapons manufacturer
while he’s giving head
to some republican senator
and if i hear one more time
about fool’s rights
to his tools of rage
I’m gonna take all my friends
and i’m gonna move to canada
and we’re gonna die of old age
I can’t decide who’s worse. The grower or the dealer. The one who makes the poison or the one who gets you hooked on it. Bush or the media.
That’s why we have rallies and demonstrations and marches. Because unless we get the media’s attention we don’t matter. Canada has made its point pretty clearly, and so has the rest of the world in no uncertain terms.
Judd’s Feb 15 post said it well. “…it’s fairly obvious that most of us… don’t really want a war. Mass destruction is so 50 years ago, it’s out of style. Maybe we should move on now?”
The media is in it for the money. Don’t ever try to convince yourself otherwise. If it were just about the news then we’d have one federally assisted, publically owned news service and they’d do a passable job of presenting the dry facts. That would be better, on the one hand, because the governments around the world would lose their favorite propaganda machines. And on the other hand bad, because we’d be dependent on one source of news, without any other perspective (and that source would be federally supported and therefore inherently suspect).
Who do you hate? Bush’s administration for force feeding the world a war (for all the wrong reasons) nobody is interested in? Or the media which makes the whole thing possible?
Because it’s all about the blangers. Pop media needs fear to sell copy. Again I have to point everybody to Bowling For Columbine, where Moore makes it easy to see what we’ve all (the smarter ‘all’) have been grumbling about all along: fear motivates spending.
Rather than deal with domestic issues that make the “Land of The Free” look more like the “Land of The Hopelessly, Dangerously Insane”, Bush is pointing his bloodied fingers beyond the border. It’s so self-destructively stupid that even the most red-necked of Americans should be angry and insulted. “Screw fixing the roof or checking that gas leak! I wanna go shoot mah guns!”
And the media has ad space to sell.
But what can you do? It’s not like you’re going to refuse the news. I think if we’re going to maintain any control at all we’re going to have to search deeper for truth, examine more sources. At the very least we have to get away from depending on the giants. Hey- that’s why we love the web. Independence and instant accountability.
So tell me about your independent alternative news sources. Give me some options here. Share.
While agreeing (obviously) I feel the need to point out (obviously) that along with the rest of the media, the internet is capable of producing spin.
How often people with bad or just wrong information feel the need to spread it on the internet. Their brain flashes: If it is in print it must be true! We needn’t look any farther than emails promising money and things running across your screen.
Just last week I was thinking of starting a rumour on the internet just to see how long it took before it got back to me. Or if it did at all. An interesting project I think I’m going to try it in the future.
COMMENT:
hmm…
http://www.rabble.ca/
http://www.vancouver.indymedia.org/
and while not exactly a news source http://www.adventuredivas.com/default.view is “global” and totally inspiring :)
I think part of the Cool of the net is the ability to leap from point to distant tangent. You start at one of your sources and flail all over the world randomly. Tends to waste a bit of time though ;)