Re: <nettime> BENEVOLENCE

[dominique@hushmail.com]

 "They don't know much English, but they know
how to say 'thank you'".

I suppose one expects the media to NOT use sugar coated delivery when handling
any crisis?   I'm not certain about Australia, but American Media is a
Buisiness; run by the same people who make advertisements (We are real men- you
are not a real man- but you can be a real man- buy our sports
drink/motorcycle/breakfast cereal) for the same corporations that make war. I
think its best to not demand that any of the "Big Three" (ABC [disney] CBS
[Westinghouse] and NBC [GE, last time I checked; if anyone has more recent data
please let me know]) deliver fair and accurate reporting; we don't go to Disney
World to learn about Genocide, we go for sugar coated breakfast cereals and
sports drinks that genocide brings in the revenues for- so long as Genocide is
not made unbearably atrocious. Just enough to register a sense "We are saving
the world" in the typical mainstream viewer, to register a positive aura- which
leaks into the corresponding advertisements. 

Of course, the other approach is the "world is so terrible but not terrible
enough that you stop watching" attitude in which the advertisements offer a
sufficient relief from the burden of thought- capsules released every 5 minutes
(on a typical newscast) that tell you the only relief from such atrocities is-
viola-to purchase soft drinks/sports drinks/sugar coated breakfast cereals so
YOU can look like Cindy Crawford as well.

But of course, this is obvious; we all know not to trust the big three, nor any
of the other "networks" for news. MSNBC speaks for itself. CNN employs only the
most superficial of analysts...Larry King, Wolf Blitzer. Those who made their
careers on war...who understand the delicate balance of personal and corporate
profit from maintaining that sacred balance of "feel good about america/feel
good about american corporate products." 

So, we wonder.... "They don't know much English, but they know how to say
'thank you'"...and we object to it? The Gulf War may have been the first video
game war, the first truly televised war (vietnam lost its chance, the toys of
war weren't fast enough or cool enough, and we still saw "our boys" getting
killed.) then this- from my experience- is teh first internet war. The only
coverage free of tainted presentation is online; and of course tainted
presentation still runs abundant. 

The serbia-info.com websites and data relays by the likes of Javier Bernal
(sp?) and m9ndfukc (Though delivering standard serbian propaganda) present the
required anti-bloat of corporate american newscasts. Initiaytives such as Help
B92 and Styx.orgs Belgrade connectivity report are essential. 

So when they ask hiow grateful your refugees are, remember; you aren't watching
tv anymore for truth. You watch it for the filter. You watch it because you
don't want to make the effort of filing through websites of conflicyting
reports and because you don't want to be forced to arrive at your own
conclusions. But this time is the first time you can- and this time is the
first time you have to.  

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