Friday, August 18, 2006
Democracy Deficit
Some things get me really angry. They are occasionally things you might not think would get me angry, things that have a meaning beyond the superficial. This is one of them. NBC, ABC, and CBS last night had a total of 15 minutes of coverage of the JonBenet Ramsey story while they virtually ignored the verdict of the NSA case: 3 minutes was the total airtime on that story, with NBC and CBS devoting about 26 seconds each.
As Noam Chomsky has said, any dictator would admire the discipline of the US media. Stupid tabloid news gets huge airtime; one of the most controversial and important legal cases of the decade gets barely a mention. This is what you get when the media is run by corporations whose bottom line is profit: tell the people what they want to hear. Ignore the rest. And by all means, interpret news in a way that is most beneficial to the administration.
More news from the reconstruction of Iraq.
Mark Green has a good article on the democracy deficit at home.
Some belligerent nations (that also happen to sit on a lot of oil) like Iran and Venezuela must be excoriated and singled out for possible punitive action. Some belligerent nations, like China, don’t merit a response. They’re too big, and their national resources are thus largely beyond serious consideration for seizing through invasion or through political pressure to allow US companies to do the work.
Of course, Iran harbors terrorists. But, then again, so does the United States.
The point is that US foreign policy is determined by the national interest as judged by the current administration, not high-minded ideas of democracy promotion delivered as ex post facto rationalizations of decisions made for material and political gain. Do we really want this administration to determine US foreign policy (among other things) as they have done in the past?
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 3:39 PM 
