You Know Something is Happening, But You Don't Know What It Is...

That is only because you have been immersed in the most powerful stream of propaganda ever directed at any human population for your entire life. One of the "necessary illusions" of that propaganda is that the commercial news media serve the public interest by reporting the most important stories and attempting objectivity. It's a lie. Media corporations serve the agenda of the power elite.

To understand the role of media, consider disappearances of people who were once accessible voices for change. When was the last time you saw Carl Sagan, or Ralph Nader, or Jaques Cousteau on television? The boundaries of acceptable discussion are contracting and they're outside them now. Did you know Nader ran for US President in 1992? That was the most effective media blackout I ever saw; even the so-called "alternative" press ignored him. Did you know Larry Agran was ahead of Harkin going into the Dem Primary in '92? He was erased from the field by the New York Times and the MacNeil Lehrer News Hour (which controlled the publicity for the New Hampshire Primary) so that Jerry Brown would be alone on "the left" in that race.

I can understand them passing over news stories in favor of news if the power elite doesn't understand the significance of the story.

No. They actively suppress stories that do not serve their investors' interest. There is a culture in journalism about "what is news" and the main thing is that the determinant of what is news is what will please the publisher and his investors. That is how the decision is made. Any editor who has been on the job for six months knows that he had better toe the line. What usually happens is they internalize the publisher's tastes as their own. Talk to any experienced journalist. They don't believe human rights or US interference in foreign elections, to give two examples, are stories. That's straight from the money men who would prefer the public not become alarmed about those things.

I can also understand passing over a story that the media does not believe will attract interest (i.e. money). Could those be the motivations for the news media's suppression of stories?

No. Journalists are keenly aware of what kind of stories will get them ahead. They know that if they don't please the investors their careers will not advance. That is the motivation.

In conclusion, I was also wondering if you would like to share some of your views about how you would like to see. How do you think a free press should be discouraged from suppressing the news?

First, it would be great if there were a "free press." But there is not. If you start your analysis by assuming that nonsense, you will never reach any understanding of what is going on. There is only a commercial, cprporate press in the US, and an insignificant dissident press. See if you can find _Multinational Monitor_ or _Z_ at a newsstand..

Select this to read [the Whole Story].

*****

You tried to tell the public about the danger you and your army buddies felt about widening the scope of the war. What made you think the public wasn't interested?

Lack of response.

Do you suppose anyone was trying to suppress publicizing your "preparations"?

Only in the way the major mass media suppress anything they don't like or understand all the time. This is nothing new. I'm sure I was free to hand out leaflets all I liked.

Select this to read [the Whole Story].

*****

When I mentioned Agnew's excoriation of protesters and Nixon's call for the silent majority, I recognize their remarks had little affect on you. Do you think they had any affect on the silent majority who came out to contend with you during your demonstrations?

Yes. We were questioning all authority which came from the Establishment.

On the other hand, the people who supported the Establishment saw their ideals and dogmas under attack. Being conservative of those dogmas and ideals, they saw Nixon people as giving voice to their frustrations. Disinformation by the major media plus bourgeois politicians=what democracy we had at that time.

I'm glad we both speak Bob Dylan. Right now, I would like to explore some of the frustration you probably felt about awakening others to the terrible things we were doing in Vietnam, but the public was sleeping soundly underneath all the "ideolgically impregnated/programmed ignorance" you saw around you. Those days reminded me of one of the closing verses of "Desolation Row":

all hail to Nero's Neptune
the Titanic sails at dawn
everybody is shouting,
"which side are you on?"
and Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot
are fighting in the captain's tower
while calypso singers laugh at them
and fishermen hold flowers
between the windows of the sea
where lovely mermaids flow
and nobody has to think too much about Desolation Row.

How frustrated did the "ideolgically impregnated/programmed ignorance" make you and the other protesters around you feel when you tried to make the public aware of what was going on?

Pretty frustrated, indeed. We saw the media manipulation of the issues we brought up because we were bringing these issues up and then we'd see them in the press and it would take an entirely different slant.

No wonder the "ordinary" silent majority was against us. They had been the victims of disinformation. So, we attempted to build a counter culture, complete with its own media. "Music was our only friend--until the end."

Select this to read [the Whole Story].