More Current Events

Courtesy of the erstwhile Brother Dave, I've read this article by Greg Palast, which discusses Disney's decision not to distribute Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9-11. According to Mr. Palast, Moore's film is based on a documentary Palast unsuccesfully tried to distribute to the U.S.

The theme of Palast's documentary, and Moore's entertainment, is the background of why the administration has not further investigated possible Saudi ties to Al Queida and the 9/11 attacks. News flash for the handful of Faux News lovers who somehow stumbled here: most of the men who highjacked those planes were Saudi, not Iraqi or Afghani.

According to Palast (and Moore) the reason that particular lead has been stiffled is the most American reason around: money. GHWB has very close ties to the Saudis, and there's an amazing amount of Saudi money in GWB's campaign war chest.

Meanwhile, Emily forwarded an essay by Bill Moyers on how media conglomeration has affected the quality of information we receive. Sadly, I don't know the origin of the essay, so I can't link to it. Here's an excerpt:

The war in Iraq has become also a war of images. This week, we were troubled by pictures of tortured Iraqi prisoners. Last week, it was photographs of American soldiers who have given their lives there.

On Friday a week ago on Nightline, Ted Koppel read the names of the dead and showed their photographs. But their faces and names were blacked out on ABC stations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting. Sinclair accused Koppel of "...doing nothing more than making a political statement."

But what about Sinclair's own political agenda? With 62 stations the company is the biggest of its kind in the country and has lobbied successfully in Washington for permission to grow even bigger. Its executives are generous contributors to the Republican party.
<snip>
Sinclair's not alone with cozy ties to Washington. Clear Channel, the biggest radio conglomerate in the country (with twelve hundred stations plus), was a big winner in the deregulation frenzy triggered by Congress in 1996. Last year Clear Channel was a cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq with pro-war rallies.

Rupert Murdoch's a big Washington winner, too. Congress and the Republican controlled Federal Communications Commission let him off the hook even though his News Corp. owned more stations than the rules allowed.

Murdoch also controls Fox News, another big cheerleader for American policy in Iraq, [and] the New York Post. For a week, the Post refused to publish photographs of those tortured Iraqi prisoners saying the pictures would "reflect poorly" on the troops risking their lives there.
<snip>
Nowadays, these mega-media conglomerates relieve government of the need for censorship by doing it themselves. So we're reminded once again that journalism's best moments have come not when journalists make common cause with the state but stand fearlessly independent of it. A free press remains everything to a free society.

Finally, from the Smiling Chimp, comes this theory that GWB has chosen stupidity as an Oedipal response to his mostly absent father (famously known as G "Herbert Hoover" WB). This gibes fairly well with what I'm currently reading in American Dynasty by Kevin Phillips. This book is an impressive combination political/psychological biography and sociological analysis.