by :Timothy W. Shire
So much has been said lately
about the triviality of the alleged wrong doing of the American president and some
how we all have to take this in and make sense of it and a lot of other things. We
are at the mercy of the information we receive and our growing, well founded cynicism
about the information vendor is making suspicion and disbelief pretty popular. The
source for what passes as information has always been suspect because there is power
in information, there is the ability to control people by controlling what information
is allowed to surface. A few years ago Robert Redford and Dan Akeroid did the clever
movie “Sneakers” in which the ultimate weapon was discovered, a processor that could
unfathom the secrets and its password was “To many secrets”. Politicians, past present
and future, local, provincial, nation and international all espouse freedom of information
until they achieve power, then they immediately begin to act in a much more guarded
manner.Perhaps it is just naive of me or perhaps being a bit clue less or a little of both, but I find myself constantly bumping up against clouds of information that for reasons far beyond me, people do not want other people to know. Sometimes it is so totally innocuous that it is bewildering. Twice during the summer I had people quite upset because I was preparing a story for this publication on their children. I have always been careful about using names and specifics that might somehow engage some perverted individuals who might misuse the information on this site, but never the less, these people objected and of course I did not run the stories. But, it might be illuminating to consider the nature of the stories because I am still shaking my head about both of these. One day I spotted these two boys riding two ATVs around a farm yard. They were having a wonderful time and were both driving cautiously but neither were wearing helmets and both were relatively young. I shot a video of their travels and thought it would make a good QuickTime movie with some comments about enjoying oneself but exercising care and caution because so many people get injured every year on those things. I chatted with the eldest of the boys about how old he was and about his vacation at his grand parents. That evening my wife fielded a pretty nasty phone call from a grandparent about me doing a story that would appear on the internet. The second one was just as odd, a young boy in a neighbouring community had made some great achievement being selected for some provincial sports team and I was going to go out to the place get his picture and promote the story of this achievement. The mother called and called off the visit as she had been told by some of the danger of the Internet.
There have been others, but they were of a different kind, as they were stories based on information providers and it surprised me to discover that they carry with them a level of secrecy that I suspect verges on paranoia.
So, what is it about information that presents such fear and danger. Why is that if one tells what they believe to be the truth, there are others who want to sue them for their understanding of reality? The reason I believe we have reached this level of distrust is because there is sufficient reason for people to have a reasonable basis for not taking chances with any and all information. Some people like to point out recent examples of public and private misinformation used maliciously and to damage others but the problem is historical. My guess, is that much of Genesis was lifted from a tablet of the day and may even have been plagiarised. I know some will find it upsetting to consider the Christmas story that we tell and retell every year is pretty much a matter of advertising material written a full generation after the death of the man and that Matthew, Mark and Luke most likely never ever once set eyes on the man whom their work is referred to as “the Gospel”.
For years we Canadians have been provided with what we considered solid honest information from the many television anchor persons who have held the number one position at CBC news as the reader of the National. I remember each with reverence and respect from Larry Henderson to Peter Mansbridge. Each of them have been selected by the broadcasting company because of their ability to present what they read with sincerity. Remember folks, they read the news, they don’t write it. The grandfather of television news, Walter Cronkite, was considered in his time as the most believed individual during his years in front of the camera, yet the biggest story he ever dealt with is still completely unbelievable even by the man himself and that was the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Television really just picked up where radio had left off and radio was just an extension of the newspaper industry. News gathering in the past and the present is not an exacting or even competent process. News is what is told, not what happened. So the movie “Wag the Dog” is a parody on what could happen and as I write this every news show in North America is examining the angle on the military attack on Iraq and how it plays against the scenario of the US congress’ plans to have voted on impeachment Thursday. Military analyst, politicians, news correspondents and college professors each trot out their view of things and the mental gymnastics of the anchor people is utterly brilliant, those people earn their living. If your interested here is what really happened!
Clinton did not create this event, it is not a staged event by the White House to counter the offensive in the Congress. It is not a pure hearted American military plot to curtail Hussain’s production of “Weapons of Mass Destruction” ( American analysts have dubbed that WMDs). No good friends, we are witnessing a very different dog waging the tail, the tail being the news media and the American political and military establishment. Let’s for a minute just consider just when would be the best time to do what you think might improve your political and power position if you were the leader in Baghdad. The sanctions are not making the people very happy and they have been going on for years. There are people who would like them to end and if you as the leader of the country want to stay leader of the country, you had better do something. Without a doubt, your biggest enemy and the enemy of the people of your country are those who imposed the sanctions and yet if your only goal is to stay in power what does it matter? You do need weapons of any kind and high tech ones would be alight, but the UN inspections are a pain in the neck. Every time the people start to get restless, just kick out the inspectors and blame the rest of the world for oppressing your country. But better yet, wait until the leader of the most powerful country in the world had got himself up to his ears in stupid lies and then kick out the inspectors. What is the worst that can happen? They drop some bombs, kills some people, so what’s the problem, we have lots of people and its for a good cause. After the bombing and during it, the people will know that the US and its allies are the bad guys and their fearless leader is really their guy and his support is once more assured.
It is a mistake to think that Clinton and Tony Blair had a choice in the matter of attacking Iraq. If they did not, they would look like wimps because Saddam deliberately, at the specific time Clinton’s situation was the most dire, pushed them over the limit and they had to react. Everyone is claiming that Clinton is guilty of bad timing, sorry folks, he may be guilty of a lot of things but time is not always under his control and in this case he was nailed by the guy with moustache.
But, did you hear that story on network television, no I don’t think so and you are not going to. It just wouldn’t sell. That’s right, I did say sell. News after all is not really information at all, it is a product that is sold. We the public buy it, pay for it dearly with the advertising that carries it to the little window in your living room and the speaker in your car. As for news papers, well they have gone far beyond providing you with some news and then having paid advertisements to cover the cost of doing that service. News papers have over their many years of existence evolved into a complex business where stories that might offend an advertiser or the advertisers view of the world, are simple not told or told only in such a manner as it will be approved. Don’t trust me on this folks, check it out for yourself. I can say this with impunity because Ensign has not received a cent of advertising from anyone and up until now, I can say what I want, as long as I do so in what I consider to be my opinion and what I believe to be true. If I had an ad running from General Motors, General Dynamics, or Hughes Aircraft, whether I was told what to say by them or not, I think I would be a little more cautious about making negative statements about the US President, because they have a pretty heavy vested interest in him and what takes place in his country.
There are news papers national, provincial and local who will only do stories if those stories are accompanied with suitable advertising. Sounds like bribery, but business is business and news is business. Information is business and the provision of information is a business. That is one of the reasons we need to be proud of CBC radio. No sponsors to support, only the government and the promise to be as balanced as possible. Terry Mowleski of CBC television is in trouble with the Prime Minister’s office because he took a pretty strong stand against them when his camera man was pepper sprayed by the RCMP, I believe the CBC has him on a suspension right now. But Terry is “talent” the on camera news person and CBC television has to rely on advertising revenue. Any news agency that takes money for advertising is no longer free to report or tell the stories it thinks need to be known. That includes Ensign, when you see an ad on this site you know we are going to be in debt to that company. (We have two ads running on our front page right now both are debts, we are listed by these companies in their search engines and so we reciprocate with an ad for them but it is still a bribe. Integrity is lost in little bits.)
You have seen on various times we have run articles about businesses and products and those have all been done because it is my belief in what is said in those articles. I have been accused of being biased toward the Apple Macintosh computer for which Faster Than Light Communications is a dealer. Well, I have also done articles criticising that manufacturer and wrote many similar articles long before I even started this computer business. The reason we went into this business and went after the dealership in the first place was because of Andrew and my belief in the product and philosophy behind the product. I realise this sounds defensive but there is a need to talk about this sort of thing.
Everything comes down to trust. Clinton’s lie in his television speech is the sort of thing we have been taught all our lives to reject. The anchor people, the experts, we see on television are constantly challenging us to believe them. Our own politicians campaign on promises to do this or that and we vote for or against them accordingly. I think she was perhaps a bit pushy about it, but Sheila Copps did the right thing when she resigned and then ran for reelection because she was unable to get cabinet to do something about the GST, even though she and they had promised to make changes and did not.
The internet is such an exciting environment because it allows people like myself and the contributors who put things they believe in up on the web. Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing but it is this very difficult thing about the Internet that is also its biggest problem. Don’t trust anybody. Just because it appears in print, in a newspaper, a web page, or is told to you by Peter Mansbridge. I realise that skepticism could also be unhealthy, but doubt and demanding some corroboration and plausible proof is essential. If I tell you that Zeorb’s bakery makes the best confectionery in town and it is called the “Bee Sting” weigh my comment and then check it out, spend forty-eight cents and see if it is any good, or ask someone for their opinion. Don’t take my word for it, certainly consider what I say, but asking you to trust me is not enough. And, if we can use our intellect and think about things, our common sense and good judgment will give us a better chance of finding for ourselves, what we believe to be the truth.