I’m Not Entirely Sure What’s Going on in Canada

…but I’m concerned.

Concerned that America’s dropping the ball creatively, that is.

We can’t afford to rest on our creative laurels while Quebecois wrestlers dress as animals and monsters, performing sexually suggestive acts before a crowd of paying customers.  Put on your creative hats, Americans.  We’re losing our place in the global order!

The War You Don’t See

In continuing, thematically, from the previous post:

John Pilger is a heroic journalist.  I am ashamed I never knew of him until today.

There are simply not enough positive adjectives to describe Mr. Pilger and his documentary, The War You Don’t See.  It is heartbreaking and maddening, vast in its knowledge, critical and honest in regard to the real reasons wars are fought.  It is inspirational to watch his strong questioning of the journalists who essentially acted as accomplices of a lying government in the selling of the Iraq war.  Ultimately, it is a must-see examination of the media our country needs to survive.

This is part 1 of 7, and it’s all available on youtube.

A couple particularly favorite quotes of mine from the documentary:

We’re told that British foreign policy is based on promoting democracy, on spreading development, and promoting human rights.  Well, if you read the actual government planning files, planners are saying to themselves that their policy is not based on that – it’s based on the control of oil, it’s based on creating an international economy that works in the interest of British corporations, and it’s based on maintaining their great power status.

This culture of impunity is deeply embedded within British society.

– Mark Curtis, historian and journalist

Not a revelatory quote, but the truth.

And then there is the following quote from Pilger himself.  I wish journalists had to sign some sort of pledge like the speech he delivers.  I was thinking of this while watching Fox News’ Shepard Smith and Chris Wallace fail to adequately cover the Republican blocking of the 9/11 First Responders Bill.

Journalists have to be brave enough to defy those who seek our collusion in selling their latest bloody adventure in someone else’s country.  That means always challenging the official story, however patriotic that story may appear, however seductive and insidious it is.  For propaganda relies on us in the media to aim its deceptions not at a far-away enemy, but at you at home.

It’s very simple:  in this age of endless imperial war, the lives of countless men, women and children depend on the truth, or their blood is on us.  “Never believe anything until it’s officially denied,” said the great reporter Claud Cockburn.  In other words, those whose job it is to keep the record straight ought to be the voice of people, not power.