VigilanceVoice

www.VigilanceVoice.com

Wednesday--December 4, 2002—Ground Zero Plus 448
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How Russian News Looks At Terrorism, Henry Kissinger, Smallpox, Iraq And Russia Itself
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by
Cliff McKenzie
   Editor, New York City Combat Correspondent News

       GROUND ZERO, New York City, Dec. 4 --If you're interested in taking a look at how one of America's former bitter enemies views the world, take a look at Pravda, the Russian NY Times and Voice of the Russian people.  (link to Pravda   http://english.pravda.ru/)
       For more than a generation, the Cold War pitted America versus Russia in an icy nuclear standoff that crumbled on Nov. 9, 1989 with the breaking of the Berlin Wall and the "fall of communism."

       Today, Russia and the United States--despite many social, political, religious and economic differences--are working to unite their former superpower status into a global unity against Terrorism.    But, the rub of the green is still there.  Splinters of dissent between Russia and the United States still pierce vulnerable parts of each nation's body.

       Pravda is a far cry from America's NY Times and Christian Science Monitor, but its goal is the same--to inform the public.    What is interesting about Pravda's style after reading major U.S. publications each morning is its folksy, clearly opinionated clarity of the "news."    Unlike American journalism, Pravda doesn't pretend to be "news."  It is more honest.  It is opinion, laced with news.  American journalism pretends its opinion is news.
     True journalism is supposed to be black and white.  Half of the information is supposed to be pro an issue, and the other half con, allowing readers to make up their minds which half they want to swallow.  Unfortunately, American journalism is truly one-sided.  It is all about rock throwing rather than fortress building, it is about destroying the public's strength and duty, not protecting it. 

     Television journalists are the most flagrant examples of rock throwers disguised as Fourth Estate Knights.  Instead of asking a question and waiting for an answer, they couch a statement in the form of a question, much as a lawyer does when leading a witness to answer what that lawyer wants him to say.   Thus,  the interviewer--the newsperson--steers  information along whatever course he or she selects.   Rather than soliciting the true opinion of the people, the reporter elicits the opinions and prejudices he or she, or the publisher holds.   The news, instead of being the Voice of the people, becomes the forum for the newscaster, the reporter, the publisher.
       Pravda is refreshing because it doesn't dance around opinion and try to mask its reporting in diaphanous detachment.  It just skews the opinion without fanfare, especially when the article deals with America.   Often the writing is enflamed with prejudice, so obvious one almost applauds it for not trying to appear like a sheep who is really a hungry wolf.
     Below, I've provided a table of today's Pravda stories and links so readers can take a spin through them and arrive at their own conclusions.   I also would suggest readers dial up nytimes.com or csmonitor.com, or latimes.com to compare the way the verbiage is presented between East and West.   I would suggest switching on MSNBC or CNN or the local news to reinforce how many words are put in the public's mouth, but only the brain dead are immune to reporters telling people what they are saying.

       I'm aware of this dilemma in news reporting because tomorrow tonight I'm going to a lecture by Walter Cronkite at New York City College.   I'm eager to hear him speak, for he was considered by many to be the "true newsman," a man who walked the middle line between the yin and yang of news as carefully as any in history.    His credibility as a news authority has been likened to the prowess of Babe Ruth; Cronkite is a legend in hitting home runs for news purity and for maintaining credibility in reporting.
      Some have called him the most "credible man of the 20th century."

       I believe the news today is pedantic.   It seems to be issued from Zeus' Olympus table, and w--mere mindless earthlings are his playthings.  I sometimes feel the news treats the public like Zeus did--that we are a bunch of dolts, unable to deal with critical social, political, ethnic and moral issues just as Zeus considered humans unable to even manage fire.   He controlled it with lightening bolts.
      In my opinion journalists think they are the Zeus's of Liberty and Justice.   They act as though they were our "defenders" our "Voices," and hurl rocks at the flaws of government as though they were in charge of managing Justice and Liberty.   But there is a fallacy in their presumptive legislation over our rights.   They seem to be Johnny-come-lately regarding the real issues of our society.
      Let's take Terrorism as one small but vital example.
      If the press is our "guardian" of Truth and Justice, our Keeper of Security, our "watchdogs of government," then how come prior to Nine Eleven their headlines didn't shout for "better security" of our homeland?   I don't remember front page editorials warning America to beware al-Qaeda, or them calling for families to bolt and lock their doors.  I do see them throwing rocks at government and wagging fingers at the flaws and gaps in our security.   I see them as fishwives, Monday morning quarterbacks, armchair travelers.
      Post Nine Eleven, I didn't see headlines calling for everyone in America to become a Citizen of Vigilance.  I didn't see the Pledge of Vigilance splashed on every front page each day.  I didn't see the demand for citizens to become responsible to defeat Terrorism.
      Instead, I saw a lot of name calling and attacks on our downsides.  Are defenders of Freedom in the business of castigating wrongdoers, or promoting right doing?
       Perhaps the answer can be quickly found when a newscaster interrupts his castigation for a  "short commercial break" where he or she has the makeup crew insure the cracks and crinkles don't show too much. while the cash register rings.
       My take on "real journalism"  harkens back to the days when Thomas Paine's Common Sense Pamphlets  incited the American public to a state of Vigilance in the face of Terrorism.    Paine sought to fire the public's ire against Complacency, Fear and Intimidation of the British, and to stand up for the future of the children's children's children by establishing self-government instead of accepting rule from an authority so far distant that the King knew no American's name.

     I find the similarity between Paine's time and today not too different.   The distance from the average American citizen and the President of the United States' ear is at least as far as it was from America to England in 1775, perhaps even farther.   Today, there are 1.7 million federal employees standing between the average American and the President, a large body of insulation that makes it almost impossible for him to hear the muffled Voices of the people.  Big government has small ears.
      Bush's storming of the country recently prior to mid-term elections wasn't to listen to the people's concerns, but rather to sell an agenda to them.   He was on the preaching end, not the meditation one.    If you were talking, he was losing.  Obviously, he did his job.  He sold America on voting for what he believes is right rather than asking the mothers and fathers and grandparents and grandchildren what they thought was right.
     He was the MSNBC Hardball commentator Chris Matthews, punching America in the guts with his beliefs on why we should go to war, and vote out any "namby pamby" politicians who promoted domestic rather than foreign policy.  Like any good Terrorist, he employed Fear, Intimidation and Complacency to drive the audience to the polls and switch undecided votes to "guns-without-butter-ballot."
       I'm not suggesting George Bush was wrong in his approach.   He got off his butt and acted.   That's to his credit.   Had he lost the mid-term elections and control of the Senate and House gone to the Democrats, he would have lost his power to influence the world.   He did what he had to do to maintain his belief we can "kill Terrorism."  But that may not be what we need to do.  It may not be the wishes of the people.  And, it may not be in the ultimate best interests of the children's children's children.
     Thomas Paine didn't want to kill the King of England.  He wanted the end to monarchial power.  He wanted Vigilance to rule over Terrorism.  He wanted individuals to be crowned the King or Queen of their land, and not be fiefs under some titular rule that suggested the "powers that be" knew more than the average person about how to live life.  He wanted Monarchial Terrorism dethroned by removing the Fear, Intimidation and Complacency that "power over people" creates.  The only way to counter such power, he promoted,  is to empower the people--to give them Courage, Conviction and Right Actions so they could rise to Zeus's level or pull him down to theirs.  

      Paine was a modern day Prometheus.  He gave people the knowledge of how to use fire instead of waiting for Zeus to create it through lightening.   In Greek mythology, Zeus got very mad at Prometheus for giving human beings power over the gods.  Zeus controlled fire.   Without fire, people were helpless.  Only through lightening bolts could humans on earth light their fires.   When Prometheus came to earth he liked human beings and felt sorry for them because the gods controlled the fire.  He decided to defy Zeus and taught humans how to make their own fire.  He taught them how to control their own destiny and not rely on Olympus or some "governmental god" to dictate the future of the earth.   When he saw a father or mother teach a son or daughter how to create and use fire, he knew he had given humanity the power of self-government not just to the people, but to the children's children's children.  He was, perhaps, one of the first Sentinels of Vigilance.  
      We need to learn to light our own fires again.
       It seems that our "free press" is fostering the idea that we are not able to flame our own Torches of Vigilance.   The constant attacks by the press on government are not solutions to teaching people how to light their Torches of Vigilance, but rather a reinforcement of their emasculation of power.  Every time the press is critical of government, there is an inference that if government becomes stronger, people will be safe.   Zeus will protect them. 
      Nothing could be farther from the truth.
      The more we allow government to dictate our security and safety, the more insecure and unsafe we become.   History is full of examples of people who abdicate the authority of self-government and self-protection over to the state.  Communism failed because its central system of management could not cope with the individual demands.   Government could not plug all the holes in the dyke.  Its power became powerless.
      The more we believe that toppling Hussein will rid the world of Terrorism, the deeper we sink into quagmire of Complacency.  The more we give up our rights to light to our Torches of Vigilance.

     However, the more we believe it is the duty and responsibility of each citizen to protect his or her family and community from Terrorism, the closer we come to Vigilance. 
      Zeus wanted to control power.  To maintain power, people must be emasculated--that is, their power must be stripped from them.  They must bow and pray to the higher order, and pay tribute to it for protection.  If they don't, they get no lightening bolts.
      American newspapers ignore the stripping of individual power and responsibility in the battle against Terrorism.   They focus their sights on the flaws of the FBI and CIA and Homeland Security as though these establishments of power had some control over Terrorism.  They suggest to the American public that when the "holes in the dyke are plugged, we'll be safe."
     Headlines don't shout:  "You Are In Charge Of Vigilance--Don't Be A Sheep--Don't Give Up Your Duty To Protect Your Children, & Their Children's Children's Children.   Become A Parent Of Vigilance Today!"
     Our current journalism sidesteps the issue of confronting Americans and the world on the personal duty of Vigilance versus the perpetuation of political Complacency.
     The more it attacks government for its "failure to secure and manage," the more it implicitly promotes that security for our nation and communities is government's job.   By calling for government to "do its job better," journalism automatically puts the lightening bolts in government's hands.  And we, the citizens of Zeus, go along.
      If journalism were the true protectors of Liberty and Justice, it would be calling not for government to rid Terrorism from the land, but for the people to do it by building up their sparks of personal Vigilance.  Only when the average citizen learns how to build more Courage than Fear, more Conviction than Intimidation, and more Right Actions than Complacency, will the Beast of Terror shrink from sight.
     Today, journalism feeds the Beast of Terror.   It feeds it by demanding government get more efficient at fighting the Beast, when the government cannot.
     Communism couldn't keep its promise to the people, and neither will any government that claims with "just a little more power, we'll make you safe."
     Terrorism lives in the communities of the world, in villages, towns, neighborhoods.   It doesn't have a shape or size one can put his or her arms around, for it is viral, amorphic in nature.  
     It seeds itself in child neglect.   Terrorism breeds when a parent doesn't take the time to know a child's Fears, Intimidations or Complacencies.  It spreads cancerously when a parent or loved one tells a child that he or she isn't loved or cared about, either through explicit or implicit acts.

     It multiplies when parents rail about the failure of government to protect us, or glue themselves to the television and inhale the noxious falsehoods vomited out of the mouths of Zeus's propagandists who wag fingers and tongues at governments, and never speak directly to the citizens about their duty, their obligation to stop Terrorism at the doorstep of their own homes.
     American journalism needs to take a lesson from Pravda and not try to appear so righteous.  As it stands today, it is not our protector, our Fourth Estate guarding us from government's power.   It is, instead, the waiter who feeds government's power by contending that government is the problem.
     Government is not the problem.
     Learning to light our Torches of Vigilance is the problem.
     I'll ask Walter Cronkite his take on the issue tomorrow tonight.
     And I'll be wary of his answer.  After all, he is a journalist, no matter what history says he is.
     To this, Mr. Cronkite might just reply:  "That's the way it is!"

(Links to today's, Dec. 4, Pravda On-Line Stories)