Cafe Now: January 2005

Published on Friday, December 24, 2004 by CommonDreams.org

A Christmas Story

by Debi Smith

On the longest night of the year, I was at my computer struggling to compose a holiday greeting. It was about two in the morning and I decided to take a break and search online for an interesting Christmas story. Our family had been invited to come to a friend’s house the following evening to share in an old fashioned poetry and story reading,"something Christmas related," my friend had said.

Our families met a couple of years ago when their nine year old daughter joined the soccer team I was coaching and which my own daughter was on. They pulled up to the first practice in an old Toyota which sported Montana license plates and a "Free Tibet" sticker. They had just moved to town.

The mother soon proved herself to be one of the most thoughtful, compassionate, and generous people I’ve ever known; surreptitiously leaving me baked goods in my car from the bakery she and her husband were operating, offering to help out whenever and wherever needed, and always positive and enthusiastic. In our chats after practice, we soon learned that we had many things in common: similar parenting styles, similar eclectic and somewhat radical ideas about education, similar values and approaches to living... Our daughters, and our families, were soon hitting it off and it wasn’t long before we got together and shared a meal.

It’s funny how laying food out on a table tends to encourage the laying out of our most deeply held beliefs as well. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the ancient and almost sacred act of breaking bread makes us feel safe, nourished, and trusting enough to be ourselves. The topic soon turned to politics.

Somehow, politics had never been a direction our afternoon chats had wandered, surprisingly, considering how much time I was then spending researching the events of September 11th and the disturbing conclusions I was coming to and so vocal about with everyone else.

But here we were breaking bread together and talking politics for the first time. I quickly realized I’d made an incorrect assumption. Never assume that just because someone drives a car with a "Free Tibet" sticker on the back it automatically means the passengers are politically liberal.

Thus began an interesting and somewhat tentative friendship with Libertarian leaning Bush supporters.

My new friend and I continued to have wonderful dialogues about mothering, schooling, etc. Our families still shared meals, though with a tacit agreement to avoid discussing politics. Over time however, concurrent with the Bush administration’s rush to war in Iraq, the dinner dates and get togethers began happening less and less frequently. This didn’t stop the kids however, who still continued to have their play-dates and sleep-overs.

Kids don’t care what someone’s politics are. It’s not that they don’t care in the sense of being un- interested. In fact in the past few months I’ve been surprised at how many times I overheard kids asking their friends--whose parents represented the entire political spectrum--who they were "voting" for, and regardless of the answer, would continue on happily with whatever they were mutually engaged in.

Shortly before November’s election, my friend’s daughter showed up for her classes at the local homeschooling center our family also attends–a place widely regarded as being fairly liberal (though political labels are such an ineffective way of defining anyone). She’d just been to a Bush rally the previous day and was covered from head to toe in Bush placards and buttons. My first feeling upon seeing her was one of frustration and dismay. I’d had my own Bush experience the previous day in which I witnessed first hand a very disturbing assault upon civil liberties and was feeling especially concerned about the direction our country was headed. Seeing this young girl so gleefully supporting Bush almost sent me over the edge. Almost immediately however, I caught myself in another faux pas. This one perhaps more major than the last. How could I worry about the demise of civil liberties on one hand and be upset with an eleven year old for exercising hers on the other?

Two days later I observed this same 11 year old girl, still sporting her Bush buttons, giggling and eating lunch with a friend. Her friend wore a hand painted "Kids for Kerry" t-shirt festooned with Kerry buttons. They certainly didn’t seem to be having any problems with each other.

These events and observations brought about a needed shift in my perceptions. Which in turn also seemed to precipitate a positive shift, despite political differences, in the friendship our families shared. Even so, however, there’s been one nagging question I’ve been unable to ignore. How could they be supportive of Bush? It’s a question I’ve regularly, and timidly, pondered asking them.

When my friend called this week inviting our family over for a holiday gathering, asking us to bring along a reading, I told her that we’d love to attend and that I’d be sure to bring along something "anti-christmas or political" to read. It’s the most "political" thing I’ve said to her in months. It was met with silence. I laughed. For a moment she’d thought I was serious.

Trying to find an interesting Christmas story or poem to share, I googled "a Christmas story." The search returned 605,000 results, the first of many being for the 1983 children’s movie of the same name. Obviously I needed to narrow my defining operators so I added the word peace to my search. I knew this would turn up a plethora of results as well, but was especially interested in finding a story I could share that talked about peace. Jesus was the prince of it after all.

My search returned 48,900 results. I haven’t a clue what 48, 899 of them were however, because the very first one was all I needed. It was THE story I knew I was looking for.

The story, published on December 9, 2004 by the well regarded University of Wisconsin-Madison student newspaper, and written by Nick Barbash– a sophomore majoring in political science and international studies–is titled "A Christmas story of peace and love."

Here was the retelling of a story–a true story–that happened 90 years ago this Christmas Eve, about soldiers in a time of war laying down their weapons for a brief moment in time, and coming together to celebrate their humanity.

Sometime around 9 p.m., a company sergeant-major in the North Staffordshire Regiment reported to his commander that several dozen German soldiers had climbed out of the trenches and were lighting candles and singing songs. The commander peered out over the parapet and was astonished to see a single unarmed German soldier walking toward them bearing a white flag. He crawled out of the British trench and met the soldier halfway across the battlefield, where he discovered the German had been a waiter in England before the war and was interested in trading cigars for brandy. He took the British commander to a group of German officers, and it was agreed there would be an unofficial truce until midnight of Christmas night.

All along the Western Front, hundreds of soldiers on both sides poured out of the trenches into no man's land to celebrate Christmas with the men they had sworn to kill...

The opposing sides exchanged candy, liquor, cigarettes and plum pudding. They roasted a pig. They played an enthusiastic soccer game on the frozen ground...They sang carols of the season, never caring that some of them sang "Stille Nacht" while others sang "Silent Night." They helped bury each other's dead and recited prayers for peace together.

As I read, a dim recognition of the story came from some remote corner of my memory. Maybe I’d read a version of it somewhere, or perhaps I’d heard about it on TV, or maybe a history class mentioned it, or maybe it’s just some primal knowing that humankind has the potential for such things. Nevertheless, I was stunned. I immediately began searching the internet for more details. I wanted to verify the story, but was also incredibly intrigued and wanted to learn more. Apparently, many people through the years have tried to chalk the story up to being mostly legend. But in a 2001 interview in the National Review, Stanley Weintraub, author of Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce, tells how he became convinced it was more than myth.

In 1985 I published a book about the five days leading up to the Armistice in November 1918, A Stillness Heard Round the World: The End of the Great War. While researching it I discovered the abortive informal armistice in 1914 that had bubbled up from the ranks on Christmas Eve. Although it clearly happened, and survivors had been on a BBC television documentary in 1982, the event had taken on the quality of myth. I determined to find out more, particularly to grasp the mythic power that the truce seemed to possess, and to examine it from both sides. I had begun my earlier book with the line, "Peace is harder to make than war," and as I worked on Silent Night that line became even more meaningful. Although I was working on other books at the time, including two on World War II and several biographies, every time I went to England or Germany on other research, I dipped into files of newspapers for January 1915, as troops mesmerized by the miraculous Christmas peace, a sort of waking dream they could hardly believe, wrote home about it. In those pre-censorship days, the letters were often sent on to local newspapers, which printed them. Then I went to the military archives. It was all real — even the football games (our soccer) in No Man's Land. I even found some of the scores.

In 1998, BBC News ran a story based on the book Christmas Truce which was written by Malcolm Brown and Shirley Seaton.

The Christmas truce of 1914 really happened. It is as much a part of the historical texture of World War I as the gas clouds of Ypres or the Battle of the Somme or the Armistice of 1918. Yet it has often been dismissed as though it were merely a myth. Or, assuming anything of the kind occurred, it has been seen as a minor incident, blown up out of all proportion, natural fodder for sentimentalists and pacifists of later generations.

But the truce did take place, and on some far greater scale than has been generally realised. Enemy really did meet enemy between the trenches. There was for a time, genuine peace in No Man's Land. Though Germans and British were the main participants, French and Belgians took part as well. Most of those involved agreed it was a remarkable way to spend Christmas. "Just you think," wrote one British soldier, "that while you were eating your turkey, etc, I was out talking and shaking hands with the very men I had been trying to kill a few hours before! It was astounding!"

I can’t help but wonder. How many of today’s servicemen and women deployed in Iraq, or how many of the so called "insurgents" who are really mostly just regular people resisting an illegal occupation, or how many of the innocent bystanders and victims of war would really just prefer a nice meal together, an exchange of simple gifts, and perhaps a nice game of soccer rather than all the senseless killing and dying currently taking place?

Weintraub doubts that the kind of truce that took place in No Man’s Land 90 years ago could ever happen again, saying at the end of his interview, "To see a common humanity in likely future opponents seems unlikely. A Christmas truce could not happen again without a mutual respect for the values of Christmas."

I see his point, but I’d like to respectfully disagree. I have much more in common with my Bush supporting friend than a shared holiday. Our humanity is not bound by our religious beliefs, by what we do for a living or live to do, by what color our skin is, by how much money we have or don’t have, nor even, as I now realize, is it bound by what our politics might be. Our humanity is much bigger and deeper than that.

I shared Nick’s story at the reading last night. I also shared the poem, Christmas in the Trenches, written twenty years ago by John McCutcheon. It was met, despite all the mixed political viewpoints in the room, with resounding applause. We ourselves were meeting in our own No Man’s Land after all, rising above our petty differences and recognizing something more deeply shared.

Another Christmas truce like the one that took place all along the Western Front in the winter of 1914 may be unlikely. And sending cards proclaiming "Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All" are but meaningless and futile exercises if we can’t find that space between the trenches–that no man’s land that is really everyman’s– where we, if even for only but a moment, see ourselves and our humanity reflected in another’s eyes. Deep down we know we share something greater than the values of the few but powerful people asking us to kill each other. Deep down we know we share something far greater than the values proclaimed by any one religious, political, or cultural belief.

It is my wish for humanity that we start living more fully that which we deeply know. For when we do, No Man’s Land will cease being littered with the awful detritus of our fear and in its place will bloom the hope, life, and dreams we all commonly share. And then we shall finally know the true meaning of Christmas and Peace on Earth.

(The following piece was published in Truthout's election blog immediately following the November 2 election. Unfortunately, they disabled all the hyperlinks which supported each of the questions.)

An Invitation to the Conservative Right from a Liberal Lefty
By Debi Smith
Ashland, Oregon

Contrary to the catchy heading of this letter, I actually rather disparage labels. For one, they really don’t paint an accurate and complete picture of who an individual is. We’re far more nuanced than that. Right? I could be wrong but I’d bet there’s at least one area in your life where you might tend to be at least a little more liberal than conservative. I know I can admit the reverse. In fact I’ve been accused before of being a closet conservative. But labels shmables. They’re like suffocating little boxes. They trap us and our thinking capabilities inside, and perhaps even worse, they create division. Division which is now being reflected in our families, friendships, communities, churches, places of work, and has become a widening chasm threatening to engulf our entire country...no matter what our labels read.

Perhaps the only way we can avoid disappearing into this chasm is to come together and begin dialoguing and listening to each other - compassionately. Not hysterically or with crazed, shrill, frantic voices. Let’s leave that to the far left and right talking heads that get paid mass sums to rile us up. This is an invitation to the real people that make up this country. Not the pundits, pollsters, media, politicians, or the corporations that have bought and paid for all of them. No, this is an invitation to regular folk. To the moms, dads, grandparents, sons and daughters - of every color, social status, educational background, and belief system - who, in one unbelievably diverse and amazing tapestry, form the fabric of this great country. I’m almost certain that if we sat down in a room together and each made a list of the things most important to us, we’d find ourselves agreeing on many of them. But how often do we consider that? Perhaps this would be a good place to begin. Discovering what we agree on. What we tend to disagree on is how to go about achieving the things we believe in, a much bigger and inherently more difficult task yes, but one that’s made easier by gaining a modicum of understanding into why we each believe the way we do. A task made easier by first recognizing our shared and incontrovertible beliefs, hopes, dreams, and desires. For example, I assume we would agree that we both want access to clean water? How about healthy air? Can you see where I’m headed?

But...before we discover what we agree on, a pressing question looms above all others and begs answering. There are close to 56 million people in this country (or more, if you take into account all the voting irregularities in Ohio alone), along with a large portion of the world citizenry, who are very confused and completely flabbergasted as to why you’ve just re-elected George W. Bush. If for no other reason than the fact he lied to you regarding Iraq. Not just one lie, but many. Saddam was not involved in 9/11. Iraq was not an imminent threat to the United States. There were no weapons of mass destruction. And to date, 1145 American Troops and 145 Coalition Troops have lost their lives fighting in this unjustifiable war.

I know you don’t want to hear it, but many of us are also wondering about a seeming contradiction of yours. Why do you go around wringing your hands about the sanctity of all life but ignore the murder of thousands and thousands of innocent people in Iraq? Approximately 100,000 Iraqi civilians - men, women, children, grandparents - have been blown to bits by our precision smart bombs and administration lies. And why do you then, to top off this absurd contradiction, re-elect the very person responsible for the murder? If Jesus is someone you admire and look up to, can you imagine him supporting all the lies and bombing of thousands and thousands of innocent people whose only mistake was being born in the middle of the richest triangle of oil on the planet? And if you can’t, could you please explain this contradiction? I hope you don’t think this is just an angry diatribe. It’s just that I can’t wrap my head around it and maybe you can help me understand your reasoning. (And in case you think I’m 100% pro abortion, you’d be wrong. One of those nuances I mentioned.)

Okay, so there’s one big question off my chest. But before I sign off, I’d like to ask just a few more questions...if you don’t mind.

Why did you vote for a man who has the worst job creation/loss record since Herbert Hoover?
Why did you vote for a man who wants to take away your overtime pay?
Why did you vote for a man who doesn’t care what kind of air you and your children breathe?
Why did you vote for a man who wants you to pay more for your prescription medications?
Why did you vote for a man who doesn’t heed the warnings of scientists regarding global warming?
Why did you vote for a man who has been the worst steward of the land in presidential history?
Why did you vote for a man whose real interest seems to be pleasing his corporate financiers?
Why did you vote for a man who took the largest budget surplus ever and turned it into the largest deficit?
Why did you vote for a man who, in 2001, ignored specific and credible reports that an attack was eminent?
Why did you vote for a man, who at every turn, tried to block credible investigations into the 9/11 attacks?

Again, I must ask, why did you vote for a man who took this country to war on lies?

Why did you vote for a man who sends your children, ill-prepared, to that war and then cuts their benefits?
Why did you vote for a man who has so far spent between 145 and 200 Billion of your dollars on this war?
Why did you vote for a man whose friends are the happy beneficiaries of much of this money?

This is by no means a complete list of my questions, but it’s a good start. Perhaps we can meet for coffee sometime, your place or mine, and you can help me understand why you’ve just re-elected George W. Bush. Then maybe over a second cup of coffee we can begin that list I mentioned. The one where we talk about our hopes and dreams for our children, and their children. About what sort of legacy and world we’d really like to leave them. Maybe from that place where we agree, we can gently move into the less agreeable areas with more respect for each other. We need to define our vision for America. You and I, the regular folks. If we don’t, I fear the creaking jaws of the growing divide will one day open big enough to swallow us all. We owe ourselves, and all future generations, here and around the world, better than that.

Looking forward to the pleasure of your reply and hoping you’ll take me up on that coffee.

Sincerely,
Debi Smith

Published on Thursday, October 21, 2004 by CommonDreams.org

To Be Silenced, Or Not to Be: That is the Question

by Debi Smith

"Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
--Justice William O.Douglas

Last week, both vice presidential nominee John Edwards and President George W. Bush visited Southern Oregon. Considering the area is relatively rural, sparsely populated, and Oregon is a state that usually gets little attention in a presidential election, it was an unprecedented and rather exciting occasion. I decided to try and get tickets to both events for my kids and myself.

Getting tickets from the Jackson County Democratic Party Headquarters for the Edwards event was pleasant and easy. They didn’t ask me to declare a party, didn’t ask who I was voting for, didn’t ask me to provide personal information or a DNA sample.

Not so at the Jackson County GOP headquarters. First they wanted to know my name, address, phone number, email, and my driver’s license number. "Do they really have the time, funds, and need to run all this data through some security check? What are they afraid of?" I asked myself. But hey, if it’ll get me some tickets, I’ll grudgingly fill out the application.

It didn’t get me the tickets. "Are you a Bush supporter?" I was asked. I explained that I was a registered Independent and not necessarily a Bush supporter. "Are you going to vote for Bush?" I was asked. "No," I honestly, and out of curiosity to see what would happen, replied. I was summarily told that if I wasn’t planning on voting for Bush, I wasn’t welcome. "John" came over to make sure I got the message. I told him I’d taken my kids to similar events (we saw Clinton and Gore in 1996) and didn’t he think it was good to get my kids involved in the democratic process early? To take them to events such as these and let them make up their own minds? I guess not. He just kept repeating, in a rather intimidating way, that if I wasn’t a supporter, I wasn’t welcome. (Funny how he wasn’t worried about how this sort of attitude might affect the future of the Republican Party. Hmm.)

I initially found the whole thing absurdly funny even though I was shaking (intimidation will do that to you) as I walked out of GOP headquarters. As the day wore on and the more I reflected on the starkly different experiences I’d had at both headquarters, the more frustrated and indignant I became. What is happening in this country that my children and I are kept out of a rally for the man who is currently our president? I had no intention whatsoever of causing any disturbances or protesting the event in any way. We’re a homeschooling family that uses a variety of life experiences and opportunities as our classroom. This was simply just another unique event for my children and I to attend and learn from.

Incidentally, I observed nary a protest during the entire Edwards rally the following day, despite the fact there had been no effort to keep anyone out based on their viewpoints or political affiliations. Why couldn’t the Bush Campaign and the GOP behave in the same congenial and democratic fashion I wondered, and again asked myself, "What are they afraid of?" I even tried to come up with a new acronym for the GOP. Grand Old Paranoia came to mind.

Feeling more and more outraged by the sanitation of the Bush event, I decided to attend the unWelcome Bush rally to be held in Jacksonville. Jacksonville is a tiny little dot on the map (pop. 2245). It’s a well-preserved gold mining town that now houses museums, tiny boutiques, eateries, and small inns. Bush would be spending the night here following his presumptuous and premature "Victory Rally" being held a few miles away in Central Point. A politically active friend of mine had organized the peaceful demonstration and had spoken several times with local authorities, informing them of the event, and asking all the pertinent questions. She was told that as long as people remained on the sidewalks, there should be no problem and that they were there to protect the president as well as our right to peaceably assemble.

Our group started out small, 70 or so people carrying signs, water bottles, video cameras, and children. As the evening wore on more people began gathering—Bush supporters, and protesters alike. There were several blockades, manned by security, at different intersections to the west of where we were. People, to my knowledge, were respecting the requests not to move beyond the blockades as well as continuing to respect the request to keep to the sidewalks. When a helicopter started making low passes overhead, a portion of the motorcycle motorcade came by, and a throng of riot cops made their appearance guarding the west end of the block, we assumed the President was on his way. Everything continued to remain fairly calm, even with the mixture of chanting from both sides.

Suddenly, an officer within the line of riot cops ordered the crowd to move back two blocks to 5th Street. They allowed about four seconds for this to sink in and then started pushing us back by moving forward in a line. The sidewalks could not contain the sudden movement of people, and subsequently the streets became crowded and chaotic. If their desire for us to move had been communicated earlier, or if that portion of the street had been blocked off to begin with, people probably would have, in general, respected it, even though we were in our legal right to be in the vicinity. But instead, the authorities in charge chose to create confusion and conflict instead of wisely diffusing it ahead of time. And the result was an unnecessary melee: sudden gunfire; people running, falling, being shot with pepper bullets; children upset by the gunfire, and coughing from the pepper; women who were carrying their children being grabbed and pushed violently; people daring to ask questions being forcibly pushed and intimidated. It must be reiterated, this event was organized to be peaceful, non-violent, and family friendly. And, even though there was a mixed demographic on the street, the event remained non-violent and relatively peaceful…except for the actions of a few of the less than restrained riot cops. Riot cops, who were, we have to remind ourselves, taking orders from a higher command.

I fully expected to see the presence of the secret service, the snipers, and a multitude of officers at this event. What I didn’t expect to see was a completely unnecessary use of extreme force in a situation that clearly didn’t warrant it. If there was, and to my knowledge there wasn’t, anyone doing something illegal or outside their constitutional rights, then why couldn’t a couple of these well-trained officers peacefully remove the offenders? I was at the front of the crowd when the mayhem broke out and I saw nothing that would warrant shooting pepper bullets, especially into a crowd so full of young children.

After returning home from this disturbing event, I turned on the news. The only thing that aired on my local NBC affiliate regarding the event was an interview with a Bush supporter in the darkened street. I did learn later that a couple other outlets offered a slightly more balanced, though still sanitized, viewpoint. Several independent video clips documenting the overuse of force have also been sent to various media outlets over the past few days, and to my knowledge, none have been aired. More sanitation. Could this be happening all over the country? How many valid stories are going unreported by the major media? Or are so sanitized as to be a faint glimmer of the actual truth?

Who runs this sanitation department?

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
--Harry S. Truman, 33rd president of the U.S.

After about 10 minutes of Internet research, I observed a picture beginning to develop. And, my friends, the picture isn't pretty. Yes, the silencing is happening all across America. At Presidential visits, during peace rallies, non-violent demonstrations, in high schools where kids draw anti-war pictures in art class, in small towns where people put dissenting comics on their car. All these events have resulted in visits, interrogation, and intimidation by the Secret Service. When you begin to notice the larger pattern of thought control, intimidation, and downright attack upon the very bedrock of our nation’s guiding principles by the people who are sworn to uphold it, a sick feeling begins building in your gut.

In answer to my question, ‘who runs this sanitation department?’ Dave Lindorff, investigative reporter, journalist, and columnist succinctly explains, "White House advance teams and the Secret Service have routinely instructed local police at cities where the president or vice president plan to visit to remove demonstrators—particularly those carrying signs which might mar the TV imagery of a triumphant presidential motorcade or rally—and pen them in, often in fenced-in enclosures, well away from the event and the media. The result is news coverage that has seemed to suggest a universally adored administration."

The AFL-CIO, commenting on the well documented suppression of free speech and intimidation witnessed during the FTAA Ministerial in Miami last November said, "Some are calling the repression witnessed…the ‘Miami model.’ The Miami model calls for authorities to foment irrational fears about peaceful political protest in order to legitimize suppression of our rights. This climate of panic enables top police officials to harass and intimidate protestors and sympathetic members of the public…. These tactics are designed to discourage ordinary Americans from exercising their Constitutional rights to free speech and free assembly. People in America should not have to fear violent attacks funded by their own tax dollars when they participate in peaceful and permitted demonstrations. These tactics are part of a larger strategy of the Bush Administration to chill political dissent and stifle civil liberties here in America."

At the very Bush rally I was refused entrance to, three teachers (who were craftier than I when trying to obtain tickets) were kicked out for the crime of wearing t-shirts that said, "Protect our civil liberties." Reportedly, a rally volunteer said the shirts were "obscene." These three women were even threatened with arrest if they did not leave the event.

How have we come to such a point where advocating for protection of our civil liberties is obscene?? Of course, that’s a silly question come post 9/11, right? Obviously, 9/11 (which was the all too convenient"catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor" that the neo-cons had been frothing at the mouth for since writing their thesis Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century in 2000) meant that in order for ordinary American citizens to experience security we’d have to give up many of our freedoms. Duh. Fall in line sheeple. Don’t ask questions. Don’t be unpatriotic. Don’t dissent. For heaven’s sake, go shopping. Go to Disney World. But whatever you do, don’t think… your security’s at stake.

Yes, our security is at stake. We are in the midst of a massive takeover (some would say corporate) of this country. But the real enemy isn’t some nefarious terrorist out there. It isn’t in those shipping containers Kerry mentions. It isn’t in Iraq. It isn’t in your neighborhood mosque or at the peace rally down the street or in the underbelly of the next plane you ride. You know why Bush lost interest in Bin Laden? It’s because he knows who the real enemy is, and where he resides. And no, let's not blame this all on Bush.

Aside from believing the enemy within is much larger than George W. Bush, I also believe a big chunk of the blame belongs on the media’s doorstep. In a few short years, media ownership has been consolidated into fewer and fewer (for profit) hands. According to the website www.corporations.org/media/ "In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S." And in 2004? "Only 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth."

These mega-conglomerates are in the business of selling you something. And the closer you look, the fishier it smells. But don’t take my word for it. You owe it to yourself, and your country, to more deeply investigate the wily purveyors of our nation’s "news." One current and particularly egregious example of media totalitarian boot stomping is Sinclair Broadcasting. The same Sinclair Broadcast Group that in April forbade its ABC affiliates from showing Ted Koppel's 40-minute tribute to fallen troops in Iraq, because the programming appeared to be "motivated by political agenda", has the audacity to order, yes order, their stations to preempt regular programming, days before the election, to air a film that attacks Senator Kerry's activism following the Vietnam War.

Sinclair Broadcast Group, the country’s largest owner of TV stations, has also, among other things: required journalists to read pro-Bush statements (verbal loyalty oaths), refused to air ads criticizing Bush and/or featuring video clips of the President making false claims, and have aired "news stories" written and paid for by the government. And this isn’t being "motivated by a political agenda"??

Freedom Chips Anyone?

At first glance this may seem completely off the subject, but what about the fact that the state of Virginia is contemplating inserting RFID chips in all state issued drivers licenses? As per Kent Willis, Executive Director of the ACLU of Virginia:

"Almost everyone carries a driver’s license, and RFID chips allow people to be tracked. This proposal would allow anyone to set up an RFID reader to capture the identities and personal information of every person who comes within range. FBI agents, for example, could sweep up the identities of everyone at a political meeting, protest march, gun show, or Islamic prayer service."

This morning, I mentioned this RFID program to my son, asking him how he’d feel if he lived in a country that monitored your every move via a chip that was implanted in your driver’s license, internal passport, or even worse, your body (technology that was just recently approved by the FDA, by the way). He nonchalantly replied that he wouldn’t necessarily like it but that it wouldn’t be any big deal. I talked to him about civil liberties, about privacy issues, about the freedoms this country fought long, hard, and bloody battles to obtain. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very convincing. But fortunately, he doesn’t get all his schooling from me. He’s also enrolled in several classes outside the home and this afternoon I walked in to find him doing some homework for one of them…reading excerpts from George Orwell’s 1984.

I know people are probably tired of all the Orwellian analogy. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. And we’re headed for a terrible sinking if we "stay the course." I sat down to look through the excerpts my son had been reading, remembering back to when I’d read the book as a teen. Included in the reading homework was the preface Walter Cronkite wrote in 1984 for that year’s edition of Orwell's novel. It reads, in part:

…If not prophecy, what was 1984? It was, as many have noticed, a warning: a warning about the future of human freedom in a world where political organization and technology can manufacture power in dimensions that would have stunned the imaginations of earlier ages.

…That warning vibrates powerfully when we allow ourselves to sit still and think carefully about orbiting satellites that can read the license plates in a parking lot and computers that can tap into thousands of telephone calls and telex transmissions at once and other computers that can do our banking and purchasing, can watch the house and tell a monitoring station what television program we are watching and how many people there are in the room…And we hear echoes of that warning chord in the constant demand for greater security and comfort, for less risk in our societies. We recognize, however dimly, that greater efficiency, ease, and security may come at a substantial price in freedom, that law and order can be a doublethink version of oppression, that individual liberties surrendered for whatever good reason are freedom lost.

…It has been said that 1984 fails as a prophecy because it succeeded as a warning--Orwell's terrible vision has been averted. Well, that kind of self-congratulation is, to say the least, premature. 1984 may not arrive on time, but there's always 1985.

Or 2004.

Yes, I blame this neo-oppression on the Bush cabal, I blame the media, but I also blame myself, and everyone else like myself, who just hasn’t had the time, or taken the time rather, to pay sufficient attention. To question. To reason. We were born into very fortunate circumstances—our country having fought long and hard for the opportunity to be self-determining, democratic, and free. Yet we have mostly squandered that gift by our inattention and often slobbering focus on all things material. It’s we the people who’ve handed over our power to the media, to corporations, to the government. We’re the ones who left the store, leaving the door wide open and the keys in the till. A few months ago I ran across a rather chilling and haunting quote:

What no one seemed to notice...was the ever widening gap...between the government and the people....And it became always wider....the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting, it provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway...and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated...by the machinations of the 'national enemies,' without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us....Each act... is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow....But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the difficulty. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays....Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven't done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing). You remember those early meetings of your department in the university when, if one had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood....You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair.
--An excerpt from Milton Mayer’s "They Thought They Were Free, The Germans 1938-45" (1955, University of Chicago Press)

Hopefully history has taught us what we must now do before it’s too late. Before we are compromised beyond repair. First, we must take responsibility for becoming better informed, and we must do so by seeking out a wide variety of information. Secondly, we’re approaching what’s probably the most important election in our nation's history. The powers that be have tried, successfully it seems, to drive a wedge through the middle of this country’s heart. Not since the civil war or the civil rights movement have we been so vehemently divided. Does the term "Divide and Conquer" ring a bell? Now is not the time to allow ourselves to be silenced or divided. We must speak out. We must listen to each other. Up to and following this election, we must continue to build bridges through the use of informed dialogue and compassionate listening. It can, does, and will make a difference. We must not be silent. For as Thomas Jefferson said, "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."

Cafe Now

Saturday, January 29, 2005

On Blogging

A Pre-Blog Archive