We Don't Want The Lies Anymore

Normally I control myself when it comes to commenting on the Canadian media (I've written many long commentaries in the past, which no one is interested in publishing, which will be the fate of this one also, no doubt), but your remarks on the state of "journalism" followed by the Greenspan email just got me going for my annual rant. Especially reading the PPF Canadian Journalism paper, so cleverly done, all the Canadian journalists patting themselves on the back with just the teensiest criticisms of one another, I couldn't decide whether laughing or heaving would be a more appropriate response. It's sad though, the depths to which a once pretty good 4th estate has fallen. In a nutshell, the problem the Canadian MSM are having today is that they are trying to maintain the pretence (I suspect a lot of the writers actually believe what they write, which is part of the tragicomedy of the whole thing) that "life in the box" is the way the world really is, while a growing number of people, largely thanks to the Internet but in no small part due to corporate excesses that are also opening eyes, are doing an end-run around the all-important gatekeeping-of-information function the MSM have more and more been doing the last 30-odd years, especially since the mid-80s in Canada. These people are discovering that there is a big world outside the media dick-and-jane-world fantasy box, and are thus becoming much more sceptical, and willing to ask hard questions, about the lies that form the walls of the box. (Yes, we know there is a lot of crap on the net, that's the nature of true freedom, but there is a huge variety of stuff available, and one learns to read widely and think about it all - there is surprisingly little variation in the stories and POVs offered in the MSM (considerably less freedom!), and a lot of that is crap also, which one must equally learn to read and think about and compare with other things before deciding what is credible). Recognising the existence of this larger non-box world is kind of a one-way street, like realising there is no Santa Claus, or becoming an ex-virgin - those with opened eyes can never return to a state of ignorance, no matter how troublesome the world may appear with the lights on, acknowledging how much it appears we have been lied to from our "authorities" and media. And also, once one sees that there is a much greater, much truer, reality than the media tries to foist on us all, simply knowing enough to start asking the right questions usually points the way to much more enlightening answers than the media have been supplying us about many things ("But why did those darn nasty Arabs bomb the Americans, Papa, and are they really thinking about bombing us here in Canada too, you say?" - "Why, they hate our great freedoms, son!" My my, such enlightenment about the way the world works from our Great Free Canadian Media!!!). What is the box? Many things (the last sentence of the last paragraph, for instance!); but perhaps the most important component in the "modern" world is the Big Lie of "Democracy," which indoctrinates us all very thoroughly with the notion that people in "democratic" countries freely "elect" their government, and that the resulting government is thus more or less accountable to them. More and more people are realising this is not quite the case, indeed is very much NOT the case - that although there are "elections" (which are a great deal less honest or meaningful than the indoctrination leads us to believe), there is actually some kind of über-layer above the "elected" government to which the people who actually make decisions answer to, and which the MSM pretty much serves also, in the modern corporate world of media concentration. This uber-layer is composed of the "elite" of society, those with serious money and/or power. (Other "big lies" include things like the national debt scam, the "war on terror", WMD in Iraq, the 'eerie' (haha) similarity of the same lies coming from the White House now concerning Iran (nary a WORD about this in the MSM!!), the "lefty-lib media", etc. and etc.) You folks can call this new understanding some "wacko conspiracy theory" all you like (actually another of the big lies you constantly propagate) - the problem is, the real conspiracy is becoming known to a lot of people, and all the cosmetic changes in the world to your MSM papers are not going to put the lid back on this box. And your circulation will continue to fall, as the opening of the eyes of the people here increases, until you start telling the truth about a few of the important things in our country and world. Which I don't see happening any time soon - who are your owners? - we the people, or the elite? Who do you REALLY serve???? (Do you think that I, or anyone who writes as I do, is going to get a job on one of your papers anytime soon?!?!) The Canadian media leads the way (in Canada) for corporate government and keeping the people boxed in in many ways - by NOT questioning the stealing of over a trillion dollars from Canadian taxpayers through the national debt scam the last 30 years, in NOT providing information about or questioning the many lies involved in Bush's "war on terror" and the attack on our rights and freedoms here in Canada using the excuse of what was nothing more than a criminal act, indeed the media leads the way in NOT questioning what appears to have very probably been at least American government involvement in the operation to take down the World Trade Center to provide the justification for their subsequent actions, the Canadian media leads the way in NOT questioning Canada's role in overthrowing the democratic government of Haiti for instance, or the illegal bombing of Yugoslavia a few years ago, the Canadian media leads the way in NOT pointing out how flawed our "electoral" system is, and how easily it is manipulated to maintain corporate control of the government. I could go on, and on, and on, but I am sure you are not interested. But we know. And THAT is why you are losing readers - a growing number of us don't want your lies anymore - when we know you are involved with the Big Lies, of both commission and omission, even if a lot of what you produce is more-or-less accurate, then everything becomes suspect. Credibility is, I guess, sort of like virginity - once it's gone, it's pretty hard to get back again. And the right-wing neocon-promoting Canadian media has blown its credibility for a lot of us, and a lot of others are quickly catching on. I could go on at length with detailed explanations of these things, but we both know I would be wasting my time - there are two kinds of "journalists" allowed to work on modern corporate papers - those who still believe in the box after a lifetime of indoctrination, and thus think people who speak as I do are some sort of "conspiracy theorists" who deserve nothing more than marginalisation, and those who know well that what we say is true - and that group knows very well that the very last thing you can do is publish this stuff and wake even more people up thus bringing ever closer the time of critical mass when you become widely recognised for the propagandists you have been, and you have to either go completely out of business or "re-engineer" yourselves into a "real" media, serving we the people instead of your corporate masters - the lid has been breached, but you folks will do your best to keep as many people in that box as you can for as long as you can. Cheers! Dave Patterson Thailand (PS - in the PPF document, the commentators' almost unfailing praise for the NYT is to laugh! - for the best part of two years the NYT was *central* and probably complicit in promoting the Bush lie of WMD in Iraq, day after day after day, "justifying" the completely illegal invasion, probably the single most important issue of the times - sure some "great" journalism there for everyone to use as a model!!!!!!) [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on October 25, 2005]

Note: http://weblogs.macleans... http://thestar.blogs.co... http://www.ppforum.ca/o...