Profound Quotes

"Neither is it that US foreign policy is cruel because American leaders are cruel. It's that our leaders are cruel because only those willing to be inordinately cruel and remorseless can hold positions of leadership in the foreign policy establishment; it might as well be written into the job description. People capable of expressing a full human measure of compassion and empathy toward faraway powerless strangers - (let alone American soldiers - do not become president of the United States, or vice president, or secretary of state, or national security adviser or secretary of the treasury. Nor do they want to." From 'Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower' by William Blum

From "9-11, Six Years Later": "If one looks at the credentials of skeptics compared to the credentials of defenders of the official line, it is impossible to dismiss skeptics as kooks. There are many people with strong imaginations on the Internet, but serious skeptics stick to known facts, known violations of standard procedures and the laws of physics. The vast majority of the people who call skeptics "kooks" are themselves ignorant of physics and have little comprehension of the improbability that such an attack could succeed without either the complicity or complete failure of government agencies. " Paul Craig Roberts

"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular? But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right." Martin Luther King, Jr.

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MEDIA CONTROL (LOE) | LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic

MEDIA CONTROL (LOE)

An Aside

Language of Empire (December, 2005), which incorporates these articles in Chapter 8, was sent out to reviewers (including The Nation, Democracy Now, The Washington Post, and others). The Post asked for it, after I’d sent them an op-ed on renditions, read it but never reviewed it, although one of their reporters was at the time working on the renditions story.

The Language of Empire was completed in December, 2005 but came out a full year later.

I never knew why. That means any influence on events I thought I could have through the book was substantially reduced. The book itself was reviewed only on the web and then only sporadically. No mainstream left-liberal or independent journalist replied, reviewed the book, or offered me a spot to discuss any of the issues - although Abu Ghraib turned out to be the single most emblematic and important angle of the Iraq war. My pieces were widely reprinted on the net and would have been impossible for anyone with a serious interest in the topics to have missed.

My articles on torture (published in Counterpunch and Dissident Voice - you can see them on the Articles page) were followed by The American Prospect in 2004-05. One of the editors actually corresponded with me and told me she was following up on my leads. She was complimentary but encouraged me to focus on cross-cultural comparisons, rather than on the more germane issue of the actual torture. This was not my first encounter with the phenomenon of ghettoizing. The editor eventually published her book in 2007. In it she made no acknowledgment of ever getting any leads from my pieces, although she’d told me as much at the time. There was not even a footnote citation.

It’s not a minor issue. Plagiarism, failing to attribute, ghettoizing, intentional or not - they’re all part of the equipment of propaganda. They contribute to the rewriting of history, the unjustified stigmatizing and isolation of some people and some ideas, and the unjustified emphasis on others. I’m grateful to Lew Rockwell, Dissident Voice, and Counterpunch for having the courage to publish voices from across the spectrum- even when they don’t sing in the key most of their readers prefer.

It would shatter the ideological mindset to acknowledge that citizen bloggers might actually be right, or worse yet, ahead of the media on a story. Or that there may have a blind spot in some journalists’ world view. The corruption journalists are so quick to find in the business and political world is very much present also in theirs - and with as deadly consequences.

That explains my eclectic blog-roll. Only space prevents me from adding the scores of blogs and websites of all kinds that I’ve found useful. My link policy - I don’t mind who links my articles, as long as you cite me correctly, link back to this blog and don’t misrepresent what I say.

I´ve posted below the original chapter on media control, which was cut from Language of Empire. And I´ve also posted the email to which I attached the final version (July 15, 2005).  I was told it was cut because it was too long. I still managed to sneak in parts into the book, but most of the material on the financing of pro-Israeli groups was eliminated.

I’ve omitted my editor’s name, as this isn’t a personal attack of any kind. I do understand the limitations within which he had to work. Also, I have no proof whatsoever that the reason he gave me for cutting the chapter isn’t the real one. That is my surmise, but he might well have his own.

From: chapter files, part 3 of 3.
Sent: Fri 7/15/05 7:03 PM
To: Lila Rajiva (lrajiva@hotmail.com)

Attachments:

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MEDIA CONTROL (LOE) | LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic.

January 6th, 2010 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment |

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