All the News That’s Print to Fit

American Politics

An old New York Times slogan was “all the news that’s fit to print”, but with the transformation of mainstream media into primarily corporate media driven as much by profit as by newsworthiness, the new slogan for the mainstream media should now be “all the news that’s print to fit”.  That change is about tailoring the news to fit an agenda more in line with the corporations, which is often similar to that of the government.  All of this indicates a shift toward a Pravda-like media echoing the official line.

This has become more apparent in the last several months with the coverage of the war in Ukraine and now the events in Israel.  There is no room for any depth of context, or perspective, or complexity on either of those issues in the mainstream media.  It has been hard to even turn on the national news because it is all so monolithic in its knee-jerk support of these two events, even though a deeper perspective would show that they are both much more complex and a result of earlier actions that precipitated the present response.

Ukraine

With the Ukraine, the issue goes back to the end of World War Two when part of the final agreement was to allow Russia to have a buffer between the USSR and western Europe because of the continuing animosity between capitalism and communism.  As the west and NATO began to encroach on Russia, the Ukraine became perhaps the last meaningful buffer, and everyone understood that if the west, mostly the US, tried to suggest that Ukraine should join NATO, it was likely to be the tipping point for Russia.  And the result of these efforts became the war in Ukraine.

Think of how we would react if Russia were to try to sign a defense treaty with Mexico.  We would be in immediate defense mode, preparing to attack Mexico.  Remember we have used the Monroe doctrine to justify the US buffer zone including all the Americas, forever.  Just look at how we have reacted to any Russian influence in South America or Central America.  We still cannot even accept Cuba after all these years.  Beside that Ukraine is a perfect proxy war for us.  We have no troops on the ground while our economic elite are making money hand over fist as we continue to ship weapons, munitions and other technology to Ukraine.  We can, without any real risk, attack and supposedly weaken Russia, now presented again as our archenemy.  And to build popular support here at home, we can present the Caucasian Ukrainian populace in all their suffering, in a way we never did with our years of destruction in Iraq.

In the mainstream media this is presented as if it were a clear-cut issue of good guys and bad guys with no room for any alternative views or even grey areas.

Israel and the Palestinians

Israel is another issue.  To put that into perspective we need to go back to the end of World War Two again.  No one doubts the horror of the Holocaust and the Nazi attempt at ethnic cleansing.  Everyone knows of the antisemitism and lack of acceptance and marginalizing of Jews in Europe over many centuries.  This was also true in the US.  Even after the Holocaust, no one in Europe or the US was ready to accept an influx of a Jewish population.  But there was the residual guilt about what had happened to them, so the west exported the issue to a place far away from us and a place in which the indigenous population could be forced to accept a new European colony.  So, the West provided support to allow the new immigrant Jewish population to expropriate the land of the indigenous population of Palestine.  The process continued with American political and military support which allowed more Israeli land claims, finally pushing the Palestinians into small enclaves, mostly under the control of Israel.  This was despite the UN protestations.  It begins to begin to resemble some version of ethnic cleansing.  This has turned into a South African type of apartheid, even within Israel.  This is like the treatment of indigenous populations in Australia and the US, but in truth it follows the pattern of western colonization in all its ugliness.  Drive the indigenous populations into reservations, or other unwanted areas and provide them with few basic rights and little to no justice.  It is in some ways akin to American slavery followed by segregation and the Jim Crow laws and now morphing into systemic racism. Gaza is much like the Warsaw ghetto toward the end of World War Two.

It is about oppression.  How should a people respond to such circumstances.  Those in control assume that submissiveness is the only rational response of such a population given the vast differences in power between the oppressed and the occupying power.

But human beings can only handle so much oppression, repression, humiliation, lack of respect and unjustified violence against them.  The slaves rose at times and killed their masters, the American Indians rose and killed some of their oppressors, the blacks in South Africa rose up against the abuses of apartheid, and African Americans rise up against systemic racism if for no other reason but to claim their humanity.  It is never about why these group rise against their masters; it should be about their restraint as they are forced to put up with such oppression in the first place.

Our mainstream media report none of this complexity.  Instead, our mainstream media, nearly unanimously chooses sides, our friends can do no wrong while the other side is demonized and dehumanized, as the corporate and governmental voices would prefer.  And any who might dare to present another view are delt with as pariahs.

I have been amazed at the mainstream media response to the recent events in Israel.   It has been nearly universal condemnation of Hamas without any suggestion of the years of provocation by Israel, creating a walled-in ghetto of Gaza.  How could Hamas dare to kill innocent Israeli citizens!  There can be no excuse!  So, the vengeance begins, bombing and shelling of Gaza.  Like shooting fish in a barrel.  Allow no help in, not even medical help, allow no escape from the walled ghetto.  But I guess it is what they deserve, thinking they have any right to rise against their masters, and therefor they deserve this retribution and vengeance.  It is good against evil, no uncomfortable questions asked.  The same response as colonial powers used to put down slave uprisings, or Indian uprisings, or any uprisings of an oppressed people, that response often being indiscriminate killing with no sense of proportionality or even respect for human life.  It is like an indulgence provided for the powerful if they define themselves as victims.

And soon there will be a land invasion of Gaza.  And the world is supposed to say, “Hamas and those evil Palestinians are simply getting what they deserve, and their masters get to decide the punishment.  And we have no right to make any judgements because we do not understand their suffering.”  Apparently, victims get to decide what vengeance is appropriate for their loss and suffering.  And that victimhood applies only to the master class.

This is why I can no longer watch or even read the mainstream media. 

However, there are very reliable alternative news sources both on-line and, on the air, for example Democracy Now and Consortium News, as well as very respectable individual commentators.  We need those voices to provide some sense of balance to powerful and emotional events, so that the complexity of events is not washed away or drown out in the blare of the mainstream media.