Op/Ed
Freedom of Opinion Vigorously Exercised
This page is always under construction; some paths may be
incomplete.
Do you sometimes feel like every newspaper, radio station, and TV
news anchor is reciting the same story at you, with only slightly different
words? Now that a handful of giant corporations own almost all the conventional
news media in the G7 nations, that feeling may not be so far from reality . . .
A good introduction to this important problem of our time is found in
Derrick Jensen's interview of Robert
McChesney for The Sun magazine. See also The News,
my own list of online "alternative" (non-corporate, non-government) sources of
news and commentary. And see FAIR for
"the news about the news," stories about media bias and money influence.
Despite the conglomeration of US publishing houses and bookshops into a
virtual duopoly, good investigative journalism is still
being written and published in book form. Remember: Those who do not
read have no advantage over those who cannot read. I keep a
short bibliography of books I have found
particularly interesting and informative.
- Art and Humour
- The first thing a country loses when totalitarianism gets a grip
is its sense of humour. Here I collect various irreverent, creative
attempts to keep America's sense of humour alive and well.
- Perspectives on 9/11
- Patriotism, said the irascible Sam Johnson, is the last
refuge of scoundrels. Certainly corporate America and the Bush
administration lost no time exploiting the tragic events of
9/11/01 to promote their own agendas. Unfortunately the American
mass media mostly sang to the Administration's tune; very few media
sources were willing to take an analytical, rather than an emotional
or manipulative approach to the event and its aftermath. If you
hankered (then or since) for some words written in other than
Red! White! and Blue! ink -- or if your memory reaches back
far enough that words like "unAmerican" give you a shiver -- you may
find food for thought in the "alternative" analysis and commentary
I collected here in the weeks after 9/11. Enjoy freedom of the press
(and of the Internet) while it lasts. You don't know what you've
got till it's gone.
- Alternative Views of the Middle East
- Of all the not-so-safe subjects, one of the most dangerous and divisive
ones at the dinner table for the last several decades has been the apparently
never-ending cycle of payback-for-retaliation-for-revenge-for-reprisal
between the Israelis and Palestinians. This conflict has been going on
longer than I've been alive. Seems like every person has some opinion
about it (except those of us who have given up trying to figure it all out
and just avoid the subject). I've collected some unorthodox ones.
- Eyewitness Account
of the Seattle WTO Protest
- No, I'm not starting a whole new page on the WTO. Life
is short :-) But the disinformation quotient in the mainstream
media disgusted me into posting at least a couple of remedial
links. Try on a few facts instead of the talking heads' facile
stereotypes and sound nibbles. Paul Hawken was there and wrote
this account of what he saw, thought and felt. You can also get
an on-the-scene video documentary from
IndyMedia,
producers of old-fashioned independent news reporting [i.e. the
kind that is actually news and not corporate PR -- some of us
are old enough to remember when there was real news on TV even,
though it's starting to seem like a long time ago].
- They Paved Paradise, and...
- Act locally. Yup, I too had something to say about UCSC's
building the biggest parking structure in Santa Cruz County
right here in the core campus. Again, you don't know what you've
got till it's gone... the UCSC of Dean McHenry's vision is
going, going, gone. Here you'll find a history of
the project and the unsuccessful opposition thereto. OK, so
it's not a success story. We also learn from our losses.
Useful Links
There are an awful lot of hot topics out there, too many to keep
up with. A lot of things are going wrong, it seems, and a lot of
unscrupulous people are making money hand over fist by making things
worse instead of better. If you want to be informed about the issues
that people will probably write about in history books when
they look back on our times, here are some starting points.
Miscellany
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SocialCritic: essays in contemporary social criticism
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Globalization, Economics, Labour, Markets, Intellectual Property, Pop Culture
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Online Globalisation Reader
The Idea of a Local Economy by Wendell Berry
McSpotlight turning a bright light on the antics of Mickey D
The Whirled Bank a satire on WB and IMF
ChildSlaves.Com a satire on sweatshop labour
Adbusters "journal of the mental environment"
Corporate Website: Shell satire on content-free corporate websites
Subvertise! subverting advertisements
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Frankenfood, Biopiracy, Biotech
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Organic Consumers' Association
BioPiracy and BioDemocracy
E. A. Clark's agriculture papers
an interview with Vandana Shiva
another interview with V. S.
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Enclosure in the NonPhysical Realm: Intellectual Property
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Arguments against Intellectual Property
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Automophilia, Oil, Transport, Road Danger, Cycling
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my web site -- heaps of links here
Car Free -- carfreedom, livable-cities, etc.
Car Busters -- slightly edgier carfreedom :-)
Bike Reader -- literary cycling
Bike People anthology of essays
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Feminism
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No Status Quo! outrageous radical website
Feminista! online journal
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War, Weapons, US Policy
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Yellow Times
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US Prison Industry
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CorpWatch: Prison Issues
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General research tools
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Google (best search engine on the Web imho)
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DISCLAIMER
The UC Regents disagree with me on almost every subject. Never assume
that anything I say reflects anything that they, or any other members of
the UC administrative caste, think or feel. Their lawyers made me say this :-)
de@daclarke.org
webmaster@ucolick.org
De Clarke
UCO/Lick Observatory
University of California
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
Tel: +1 408 459 2630
Fax: +1 408 454 9863