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Chad, Thanks for mentioning alternative media and the different perspective on Veteran's Day and war that can be found there.

I support our veterans in the sense that the government needs to provide them all the support they need to recover from being used as a tool of American corporations in our generally illegal wars, and in coming to grips with the decisions they made. Every Veterans Day am struck by the underlying assumptions that our wars are noble and have somehow protected our freedoms, when in fact most often these assumptions are false.

I do think we might want to have a new holiday called "War Resistors Day" to set an example of celebrating those who were strong enough to refuse to serve in illegal wars of aggression.

Chris

posted 3 years, 6 months ago
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An underlying assumption for many of the opinions expressed was that trained or ?professional? journalists somehow serve us better than those who are not. But an objective examination of the facts of history tell us that this is not so. While a very small number of professional journalists alerted the public that the reasons offered for going to war in Iraq appeared to be bogus and would lead to violations of international law, many, I believe the vast majority, were cheerleaders for war, or said nothing (including many pundits and reporters on NPR). Professional journalists are not necessarily more ?factual, objective, fair, balanced, and understandable? than bloggers. Watching or listening to the reports on the corporate controlled media, with FOX News or Clear Channel radio as a primary examples, and studies by groups such as Fairness and Accuracy in Media makes this clear. Having a certificate alleged to prove professionalism means not much more than that the person with the certificate should be in a position to do a good job. Looking at where ?professionals? have helped lead us, not just media professionals, but professionals like economists, bankers, brokers, traders, etc., should show that it isn?t necessarily so. You can think of many more examples.

I live in Baker City, a small town in eastern Oregon, and I have an intermittent blog that in addition to unadulterated opinion, sometimes reports on things that the two local papers don?t want to deal with. My blog was the first to report on an incident involving the City Manager, and has reported items of public interest about his past that the two other papers did not.

The idea that papers are somehow unbiased and objective is absurd, because they are run by human beings under significant pressures from the owners, advertisers, institutions, and organized social groups.
I no doubt have far fewer readers than they do because I don?t run my blog as a commercial establishment as they do. They have to sell advertising to survive, and cover many local events that a blogger wouldn?t have the time or money for. There is a cost for their commercial nature though that I don?t have, and that is that in smaller communities especially, advertisers and local powerful institutions, exert financial and social pressure on the papers not to report things they don?t want to hear. Advertisers sometimes pull or threaten to pull their advertising dollars when they see things in the paper that run against their interests, and others, like the Police Chief, might appear in their offices pounding on the desk or railing against a particular reporter. These reporters may then lose their jobs. All in all, these pressures result in papers that are servants to power and tend to promote a very limited, partisan and business oriented (rather than people oriented) approach. To think that we would create laws that restrict bloggers from being recognized as media, and thus not privy to executive sessions, means that much that should not be kept from the people, will be. I personally agree with Jesse42 that the executive session (and secrecy in government generally) is the problem, not whether bloggers should have the right to attend them.

posted 3 years, 7 months ago
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An uncut forest is worth a lot, but in terms of reducing climate change and global warming, not having children, composting, turning yard waste into charcoal and putting it into the soil, riding a bicycle, etc., is worth a lot too. Not having children is probably the single most important thing people can do to reduce climate change/global warming. Anyone offering carbon credits for average people? If not, it starts to look like just another subsidy for the agricultural aristocracy.

Chris in Baker City

posted 3 years, 9 months ago
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