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| Naomi Klein in Berlin when publicizing her ground-breaking book "The Shock Doctrine - The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I became a became a reporter working for a newspaper in
1945, as soon as I left high school, and within months I had figured out that
newspapers serve before anything else, the interests of their owners.
I followed that profession until
1971 in eight different newspapers in five Commonwealth countries, and I have
never had any reason to doubt my original conclusion.
But recently the dishonesty as to their
purpose that lies in the heart of every newspaper operation has become so blatant
and so proudly displayed to their reading public that one is really almost lost
for words to describe it.
Last night I attended a meeting
at which two social activists Martin Lukacs and Bianca Mugyenyi described the
proposals for Canada of the Leap Manifesto, a suggestion for broad social and
political change that has been stimulated by the writings of Naomi Klein, but
fundamentally is based on the urgent need for the world to confront the climate
changes that are already under way, and that will be irreversible unless action
is taken soon to reduce the emissions of carbon gases into the atmosphere that
are consequent upon the use of fossil fuels
for producing the energy that is so imperative for the functioning of a
modern society. They were speaking as part of the admirable monthly series of
lectures sponsored by Nadia Alexan’s group Citizens in Action, and the Association of Concordia University Students
at which experts discuss current social problems.
Both speakers were involved in
creation of this challenging Manifesto, and in their earnestness, their
enthusiasm, their distaste for the worst effects of capitalism, they reminded
me of my young self, although both are much more focused than I ever was to
stimulate meaningful and permanent change. Lukacs said the Manifesto is not
intended as a programme, but rather as a stimulant to pubic debate, surely an
admirable and easily supported initiative. Not so for our masters of the press.
The Manifesto says its purpose is
to promote a world in which caring for each other, and caring for the planet
should be our overriding purposes. But Lukacs said, since that was their aim, it
was odd, to say the least, that they should have been assailed by a media storm
of contempt that has been unrelenting, and that appears to have infected every
outlet. The august Globe and Mail, of Toronto, an unrelenting proponent of Conservatism
(remember their risible endorsement of the Conservatives in the last election, with
their refusal to endorse the leader?) weighed in almost immediately on
publication of the Manifesto with an an editorial denouncing it as “madness”,
according to Lukacs, and have returned to the attack as recently as last week
with an excoriating attack by columnist Jeffrey Simpson, just the latest of
their many charming onslaughts on the principle of public discussion. Hard left turn to nowhere,
said the National Post. Leaping into the
abyss – Prince George Citizen. Suicidal leap
to the left –- Toronto Star. National suicide, intoned Conrad Black, who
himself committed business and professional suicide, so he should know whereof
he speaks. The
assembled editorial writers of the nation appear to be unanimous, not for the first time.
Yet when one runs through the
proposals made there seems to be nothing disgusting, ridiculous or mad about
it.
·
They want to respect the inherent rights of the
original inhabitants (which are, after all, guaranteed in the Canadian Constitution);
·
they want to shift to renewable sources of
electricity (something that is already well under way in countries like Germany
and Denmark);
·
they want to improve the national infrastructure
(which the government is beginning to do already);
·
they want communities to control their own energy
sources;
·
they want to retrofit houses for more efficient
energy use;
·
they want a more ecologically-based agricultural
system;
·
they declare that “austerity” programmes have
become "a threat to life on earth”;
·
they want
to remove corporate money from political campaigns
·
they want “a vigorous debate” about a universal
basic annual income for everyone, and a national childcare programme.
One can see that some of these proposals would upset the
capitalistic apple cart, and most are certainly more easily described than performed.
For example, the idea that the food-producing machine, based on huge monocultures
that reduce the biodiversity without which the earth as we know it cannot go on
for long, would require a huge mobilization of opinion so powerful that it
could shift the entrenched money machine currently running the present system.
Of course, our soils are degenerating under the present system. But the last
time. I looked into this (admittedly a few years ago) the federal government had
one man on its payroll whose task it was to overlook the quality of our soils. Pretty
far from what is needed.
Of course the very idea that
fossil fuels should be abandoned if we want to save Planet Earth from
irreversible degeneration as a place to live on, is in itself enough of a
warning to the editorial writers (I have always thought of these people as paid
liars for their bosses) to march out in their serried ranks to put down this
rebellious rabble. And they have certainly rallied to the cause with great
enthusiasm.
But their editorial denunciations
have not squelched the uprising. The Manifesto has been translated into eight
languages already, and has aroused enthusiasm in more than one country, and to
judge by these two clear-eyed, eloquent proponents, more success is inevitable.
Just before I went to this
meeting I listened to a recording of an interview given by Ralph Nader, that irrepressible
thorn in the side of the American establishment, in which he gave compelling examples of how
united newspapers are (the more common
term these days is “media”, because it takes in electronic as well as printed
media of information) in refusing circulation to ideas they do not approve of.
This man Nader is a wonder. It is more than 50 years since he wrote a book
criticizing General Motors which brought down upon him a blizzard of efforts to
silence him. During these 50 years he has been the sparkplug of nearly 50 advocacy
organizations, has stood for president five times (gaining on one occasion the
gigantic total of 2.74 per cent of the votes cast, his best effort), and he retains
the clear-eyed enthusiasm with which he entered the fray so long ago. In
Canada, too, we have benefitted hugely from his work: he founded that network
of student activist bodies going under the name of Public Interest Research Groups
--- look them up, you will find virtually every Canadian university has one, and they have for years been active participants in the social education of young Canadians.
Nader has now organized a huge four-day
meeting for May 23-26 in Constitution Hall, Washington, DC, of advocacy groups
from across the continent that he described in his interview as “the largest gathering of accomplished citizen
advocacy groups over the largest number of reforms and redirections in our
country ever brought together in American history.” Apparently, this meeting will
be attended by thousands of dissatisfied citizens.
Nader
said: “These are the people who make America great. These are the people who
advance health, safety, economic well-being, democratic procedures, push for
cleaner elections, mobilize labor and small taxpayers, and try to rebuild
public works and have a better healthcare system and a better set of voices.
And they're completely excluded…..from the election coverage.” To illustrate how effective has been the blackout on news of this event, I mentioned it last night to Ms Mugyenyi, and she had never heard of it.
Nader gave some examples, of a kind that could no doubt be duplicated in Canada:
“Recently
there was a gathering in Washington for the press on solitary confinement, by
the leading specialist in the area, Jim Ridgeway, and several people who were
arbitrarily and cruelly confined in a solitary cell. No press whatsoever.
“And then,
about the same time, George Washington University had a major symposium on tax
havens, tax escapes of corporations, in places like the Grand Cayman Island. No
press whatsoever.
“And then
they had these Democracy Awakening and Democracy Spring in Washington, D.C. The
Washington Post just completely declined to cover it.
“And here's
the real kicker. Former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, a very
progressive man, has been trying to get the mass media to pay attention to
Section 317 of the 1934 communications law. What does that say? It requires,
without exception, the disclosure of all donor names to these PACs and super
PACs. There is no exception. And the FCC has been sitting on a Common
Cause petition and other previous petitions, and doing nothing. Gets no
coverage by the mass media….”
Earlier
Nader had given an account of how difficult the establishment had made it for
him to register to stand as an independent candidate for President, the Democratic
party establishment alone bringing 24 legal cases that had to be fought in 12
weeks, in an effort to stop him.
We have already had in Canada striking evidence of how unfair the establishment
media can be in elections. In 1992 Mel Hurtig, a successful Edmonton book
publisher and nationalist, founded the National Party of Canada, which stood with
a large slate in the 1993 election against Brian Mulroney’s free trade
proposals. They argued policies of
undoubted national importance, yet were given virtually no coverage during the
election, certainly not at the national scale. Hurtig had to go to court to try
to establish his right to take part in televised debates run by the CBC, which,
increasingly, as it has come to depend more and more on advertising revenues,
has begun to act like a member of the mainstream media, with its own peculiar
set of rules.
So, in summary, the proponents of the Leap Manifesto should not be
surprised at the violence of the attacks made against them by the media, nor that
in publicizing their Manifesto they will have to depend on online sources, and
the sort of word-of-mouth support that they seem already to be generating.
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