long time gone

Phew. It's certainly been a while.

I apologize for the long delay between posts. Reading too much of dailyKos and the Huffington Post really makes me hate America, and the last thing both my readers need to see is another "The White House is full of crooks" post. We all know that already. That aside, there is much to discuss. I'll try to be brief and informative, as I know the two of you lead busy lives.

(sip of coffee)

First, a question: Which is preferable to you? A country where the press is monitored and censored by the government, or a country where the press is free from government sanction, but marginalized and propagandized by that same government? Through history, those options tend to be two sides of the same coin; just read an article about international politics from Pravda or Xinhua (not that China makes any claims about its media being free, at least that anyone believes). Or, for an example that hits a little closer to home, consider the New York Times. All of these are outstanding examples of government censorship and meddling in the "free" media.

Wait, what? The Gray Lady?

Sure. Take, for example, this piece about Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. (NY Times, free registration may be required) How nice that the Times chose to do a human interest piece on a person whose human side must, by virtue of the job he is applying for, be put aside in favor of larger concerns. And, of course, there's the magical lie that Judy Miller heard from the administration and repeated as though it were fact. Meanwhile, Miller is the furthest thing from being fired for lying and conspiring with the White House to fleece the American people, and the Times continues to be clowned by its own reporters.

So, the question. Is it better when you know what you're getting, or when you think you're getting the real deal but you're not? Here's my suggestion - at the uppermost levels of the media, there's not much difference between the two, because the result on the part of the consumer is the same: for the most part, they think they're getting mostly, if not wholly, honest "reporting." The thing about repressive, totalitarian governments crushing opposition to the state-owned media is that it's hard to keep that sort of thing going in a democracy, particularly one with a large middle and/or upper class; one can always start their own broadcasting company (or blog ^_^). The other thing is that, like we saw in Yugoslavia, eventually the disconnect between what the media is reporting ("the resistance are terrorist, fascist dogs and should be beaten") and what is actually happening (police beating old women and teenagers in the streets) becomes so large that people simply cannot ignore the cognitive dissonance that results. Either the government is lying to you, or the pictures you saw and the stories you heard were false. Generally, people make the right choice and overthrow their totalitarian leaders (if they can).

So instead, semi-authoritarian regimes use constant, medium pressure on news agencies to keep them (dis)honest. Although in the rest of the world, it's not really a secret that Pravda takes every negative report about the Russian government to sling mud in return at whoever is denouncing their human rights violations, most people in Russia don't see it that way. They see it as Russia defending itself from the constant, unjustified onslaught of negative opinion from the West. In the rest of the world, it's not really a secret that China filters its news through the government. However, in China, anybody that knows about it doesn't talk about it, and most people don't even think about it. So business continues as usual, and the public is more or less convinced that they are getting as much of the story as they need/deserve.

Democracies use the media as a tool, too. Refer to that other paragraph up there, where I indicate at least two major instances of the New York Times, the "paper of record," blatantly propagandizing for the White House. Hundreds of thousands of people will read or have read those articles and believe every word of them. Not everybody, mind you, but many, many people. This gives a nasty advantage to the government; under the guise of a free press, the information leaked to the paper then becomes evidence for what the administration wants you to believe (exhibit A: Dick Cheney going on Meet the Press the first week of September, 2002 and asking, "Did you see the article in the Times (unspoken: that we planted) this week? It says Iraq is building nuclear weapons." So the end result is the same. People read fake news that is ostensibly less fake than the news in authoritarian regimes, but take it as though it were, you know, real.

The biggest difference is that in America, there are lots and lots of blogs dedicated to the truth, or at least opinion that is clearly demarcated as opinion. The HuffPo, although it is growing a new generation of young America-haters, will not be shut down any time soon. Neither will dailyKos, the most popular blog in the Ecosystem. And perhaps that is the greatest measure of the free press; after all, the Times has to worry about things like access to top levels of government, and its shamed, discredited reporters turning on it and writing tell-all books about the massive dysfunction at all editorial levels of the paper. I will never meet with Dick Cheney, and I have no staff (although most days, it's tough enough to keep myself in line). The unspoken rules are different for me, and that gives me a greater measure of freedom than the upper levels of the press. (Conversely, I have somewhat less responsibility to my readers, but that's a story for a different day) Hence the boldface.

So that's what I think; discuss freely.

On to my second point. President Clinton spoke at the University of Minnesota last night. I listened to most of his speech and the Q&A session on Minnesota Public Radio afterward. (link to article here, no audio, sorry) This speech made me long for a time when instead of sneaky crooks and relentless cronyism headed by a puppet with no marketable political skills whatsoever, we had a president who could, in the words of Walter Mondale, "think, who could write, who could connect with people, and who could SPEAK." President Bush could NEVER speak like this. He could never come close to writing a speech this eloquent, and he could never reaffirm anyone's belief in the greatness of America and the world, unless he ran around in a flight suit with an American flag in one hand, a bullhorn in the other, and shouted "STAY THE COURSE!!! FREEDOM!!! I WILL NOT COMMENT UNTIL THE INVESTIGATION IS COMPLETE!!!" in front of a giant banner that said Mission Accomplished. And even then, probably not.

I digress. At the end of Clinton's speech, he wanted to give the audience hope that the world was not dominated by a handful of corporations that had reached their long tendrils into the upper echelons of government, and this is how he did it. He said that these three reasons had hardly ever been mentioned in the press, and that the three had never been mentioned together (and they remained that way, even after the MPR.org news coverage), so I'm doing it here for you, paraphrasing and not quoting his words (please don't sue me):

1. Democracy is spreading. More than half of the people in the world live under democratic regimes. 60,000 mayors in China are either elected, or at least sensitive to public opinion. Democracy is not a safeguard against bad government (imagine that), but it at least gives people a chance to get the bad government they might have wanted, and at a local level, it can affect positive change. Clinton cites the example of the mayor of a major Chinese city fielding many, many complains from his citizens about the disrepair of the streets in his city. If the Chinese people feel free enough to complain about the streets... what's next?

2. The Internet is spreading, and its use as a political organizing tool is growing exponentially. Many thanks go to Howard Dean and Joe Trippi for organizing the largest grassroots presidential primary campaign, ever. Their organization has been mimicked by other, more successful candidates, and a similar system will no doubt be in place (with enhancements thanks to the power of hindsight) for the 2008 presidential contest. The Bush-Clinton Katrina fund has received the vast majority of its donations over the Internet, and the average amount of those donations has been $50 or less. Average people like you and me have come together to help people whose lives were devastated half a world away, and it is a testament to the power of the Internet that it has become the primary preferred medium for grassroots public action.

3. Non-governmental organizations are increasing in number. Bill Gates, though he is the founder of one of the most evil corporations in the world, is dedicated to spending his fortune before he dies, and he has given over a billion dollars to prevent disease in Africa. He has also given money to 250,000 high schools here in America. His foundation is the single largest philanthropic organization in the world. He is only the tip of the iceberg - there are thousands and thousands of organizations with specific purposes that you can give your money to, and they have pledged to do some good with it. (I recommend starting with my favorites, the ACLU, Democracy for America, and Minnesota Public Radio.) NGOs are even spreading throughout the world; even though Pravda can't be trusted to not hate the haters, there are over 60,000 NGOs in Russia.

The fundamental point is this: There are now more ways than ever for the individual citizen to do public good. This is a trend that is not shrinking or disappearing; it is expanding, and can only continue to do so. China let in the Internet, in a censored format; that is one Pandora's Box that they definitely cannot close. Dean and Trippi let politics onto the Internet in a meaningful way, and that will change the face of campaigning in the USA forever. There will be elections we are happy about and elections that take giant steps backwards, but the American federal government is not the barometer of progress for the world.

Lucky for us.