Independent Media

Independent Media:


I would like us to give serious consideration to
alternative media in the USA. I know a lot of us
watch/listen to NPR, Pacifica Radio, Link TV and
Democracy now. I am sure quite a few are members of
the organizations.
We are all cognizant of the fact that the so called
main stream media are not main stream in their out
look.. They are owned lock, stock and barrel by the
Global Capital. They project the interests of the
Corporations, which show no discernible concern for
the interests of humanity at large.
Conglomerates, of course, own Governments as well, so
the legislatures, the executive and the judiciary will
never countenance any measures not approved by the
former. And I am not talking of the Governments of
client states in the third world.
Corporate heads most likely take themselves for super
human beings. If they were not so good at deluding
themselves they would realise that they were behaving
as retards.
We do not hear much of Global Warming which is
leading to melting of arctic ice, which in turn is
raising the sea level. By 2085 parts of Florida, New
Orleans, Washington DC, London(England), all of
Holland, Maldives, Karachi and Bombay, but above all
lower Manhattan with Wall street will be drowned under
water..
Climate change will lead to unpredictable periods of
water deluges and interminable droughts, inundating
some regions and desertifying others. Crops will fail,
people will starve.
Toxic pollution of the atmosphere and water will
cause unknown diseases. Nuclear waste and fall out
have already caused proliferation of certain types of
cancer.
Depletion of Wetlands has led to enormous enhancement
of the destructive potency of Hurricanes.
Oil spillages destroy acquatic life, fauna and flora.
Despoilation of forests lead to mudslides, elevation
of water levels in rivers and floods as there are no
trees to hold rain water. Hundred of thousands lose
their hearth, home and livelihood.
Depletion of Ozone has already caused cause numerous
skin diseases and cancers. It will only increase.
Genetic meddling with aggricultural products will
lead to unknown consequences. The known effects range
from mild allergy to shock to high blood
pressure,strokes and stomach ailments.
Corporatations bamboozle FDA into letting them evade
proper labelling of foods as gentetically modified.Ill
considered food processing has had a tremendous impact
on proclivity to obesity, heart/lung and other
diseases.
Pesticides similar to Agent orange have been used in
the USA with impunity. We are in line for genetic
defects seen in South Vietnam Hospitals like no arms,
legs or brain.
Paucity of preventive care leads to hemorrhage of
resources in treating preventable diseases, which even
a country as rich and which controls seventy five
percent of the productivity of Human kind, as the USA,
finds difficult to bear.
Thirty eight million working Americans can not make
ends meet. Forty five million Americans have no health
Insurance.
Every thing is privatised, even the jails where one
hundred twenty thousand Americans are being, in terms
of amenities, treated in-humanely.
Farmers and small business men in the third world and
Latin America are being driven out of business as they
can not compete with large corporations. IMF and World
Bank call it restructuring. Governments there are as
little concerned with the fate of the people as ours
is of us. They accept the dicta willingly.
Jobs in scores of millions are being out-sourced,
leaving Americans unemployed. Scores of millions have
to accept lower pay and loss of benefits, even loss of
pension funds. That is what Globalization is all
about.
Every disaster, from the Tsunami in South Asia to the
ones in New Orleans, Texas, Louisiana, and sabotage
of oil pipelines in Iraq, is followed by price gouging
and usurious increase in profits of oil companies.
There would be a lot of sichness and misery this
winter as people would not be able to afford home
heating.
The oil company heads have the nerve to tell the US
senate that the profits are in line with those of
other businesses. The US Governments keeps on giving
them Tax breaks.
Elections were stolen in 2000 and 2004. Deliberate
lies were told to justify invasion of Iraq. One high
up has already been indicted. He has been most likely
thrown to the wolves to spare the Don under whom he
worked.( Blair survives even thrives inspite of eighty
five percent of the public against his Iraq policy,
largely because the opposition there is equally
culpable).
War in Iraq has cost billions of dollars, over two
thousand American dead, hundreds of thousand Iraqi
casualties with not a barrel of oil to show for it.
Insurgents control all Iraq out side of major cities
as they do Afghanistan, out side Kabul and Qandahar.
We are told to console ourselves with a constituition
no Iraqi gives a tinker's bell about, elections which
no one believes in the legitimacy of, and a Government
which an Arab intellectual called "Jackals wedding
guests". They stink so!!
Corporate heads and their bag holders in the
Government do not give a God.... Their God ,in the
most literal sense, is the Almighty Dollar. They feel
secure in the knowledge that pain inflicted slowly and
steadily does not result in a violent reaction, like
the proverbial frog which jumped out of boiling water,
but went blithely to its maker, when placed in water
with a fire underneath. So the American workers
"boiled" slowly will not explode in a frenzy of
protests, strikes or destruction of infra-structure.
All the extractable sources of energy will be
exhausted in the next twenty five or so years. Yet
little emphasis is placed on consevation measures or
development of solar and other alternative sources of
energy.At the current rate of progress in the field
there would be a time lag of several decades between
the last barrel of oil and the production of adequate
amount of alternate fuel.
From Manhattan to Queens NY,we will have to travel in
a buggy. But that would not be the worst. Human kind
has lost all skills and facultiies of being able to
survive with out Electricity or Gasoline. We would
have no food, heat, clothes,or medicines. We would
not have any schools or hospitals. We would not be
able to go anywhere. We would not have phones, TV,
Books, Newspapers,Radio, Mail, Telegram and God
forbid, an internet service.
Civilsation, as it is known today, will cease to
exist.
Ironically, "primitive" and less developed societies,
not so dependent on non-replenishable energy
resources, will be able to with stand the loss much
better.
But long before the last barrel of crude is
extracted, oil wars will ensue.
Iraq war is an ominous portent.
If Europe has been able to get its act together, it
will form, with the USA and China/India, a triad of
combatants.
They may come to an accomodation to divide the supply
among themselves or may get entangled in MAD, which
will solve all energy problems. All other countries
will get the short end of rhe stick.
This is not a fictional scenario. All the scientific
evidence on hand supports the contention.
And the corporate mandarins think that they can buy
their way out of exposure to Ozone, Nuclear pollution,
rise in water level and climate change. They can leave
millions for their progeny to do the same.
I some times feel that the part of their brains
mediating common sense has atrophied.
For all their missionery zeal, integrity and
dedication, independent media have a very narrow base.
I have undertaken informal surveys over a number of
years in Bazaars, Univercity campuses, social
gatherings, among the Desis, ABCD's,FOB's, white and
people of color-broad spectrum of Human denizens of
the USA.
Main stream media is literally in the pockets of a
few billionaires and large corporations are not
allowed to cover the unpalatible facts. They would not
show the rotting bodies on the streets of Baghdad or
the ones floating in New Orleans.
Very few listen to or watch Independent media. Not
many are even aware of its existance. But that is the
only game in town. They barely survive on the current
level of support.
We the expatriates have a role to play. We have to
support to Independent media.
We can do it effectively too.
We have come of age to take proprietary interest in
the milleu we live in. We are doubly blessed in that
a)we are now in sufficient numbers to have an impact
and count among our numbers a vastly greater
proportion of educated members, university graduates,
professionals and academics, than the "older"
Americans-those whose ancestors predated us in the
country and b) we are affluent, and frugal as well.
We have greater stake in rule of law than "older"
Americans. However much we delude ourselves that we
are the elite, we are the first target in any
adversity. Muslims, because of 9/11 and others acts of
the lunatic fringe, are very vulnerable.
The non-Muslims among us will only be burying their
head in the sand, if they think they are invulnerable.
All Indians, Pakistanis and Bangla -Deshis look more
or less alike. A sikh was stabbed to death because he
was mistaken for a Muslim cleric.
Arabs unless wearing their traditional garb look like
Hispanics and whites. Some look like Indians too.
People from the far East look Chinese to Western eyes.
A maniac does not enquire of your religion before
dispatching you with a knife or a gun.
Blacks, Hispanics, Chinese, Japanese, Catholics,
Mormons and Jews, having lived here for centuries, are
still not immune to discrimination.
I am not advocating support of Independent media,
because of altruistic reasons of fair play, justice,
Democracy, empowerment of the poor, exposure of the
chicanery of the power brokers, liberty, fraternity,
an egalitarian society,or social services , all
laudable causes in their own right, but because our
very survival depends upon greater audience of
Independent media.
We have to take tome out from chasing rainbows and
moonbeams.. Agitating for Human Rights in the under
developed countries, does salve our conscience, but
does not a bit for victims of violence, trade in flesh
or child trafficking.
Before worrying about dictatorship in Pakistan, there
is not much to chose between civilian and Pakistani
dispensations- they are all dictatorships of the
feudal class- we should endeavor to deal with our
electoral subversion.
A truly representative Government, with moral as well
as physical authority, would have a much greater
impact on the Governments in Kazakastan, Indonesia or
Saudi Arabia. An honest dispensation will want to set
other houses in order. Under the current system, and I
would not distinguish between Democrats and
Republicans- both equally servile to Capital- the
Government only discriminates between "our son of a
bitch" and others.
Short of launching a grass roots revolution, for
which niether do we have the stomach nor deep enough
roots, we have no choice but to give instinted,
consistent and generous support to Independent media.