|
|
|
Interview with "FAKT" that will never go to print ..., Cosmic Awakening ..., Deception in Media ...
In the middle of September this year I had a visit from two reporters and one photographer from a German owned, million copies per day, newspaper in Poland: "FAKT". The photographer took a lot of photos and the two reporters interviewed me for 11 days on the subject of politics and economy in Poland. It is now the middle of October and it apparent that this interview will never go to print.
I am not surprised that directors of a big newspaper are afraid to print the truth. It has been only 15 years since Poland changed from a Communist controlled to "free market economy", which is not so free. The Polish economy is still tightly controlled by the former members of the Communist Party of Poland. They are determined to stay in power regardless of the popular vote. With a total disregard to principles of the parliamentary democracy, Poland is now ruled by a "presidential" government headed by Marek Belka, who for years was groomed for this role in the presidential palace of the former Chief of the Communist Party of Poland Alexander Kwasniewski. Krzysztof Janik, who is the present chief of the post-communist Party SLD, the largest party in the Polish Parliament, is publicly lamenting these days that the Party he is heading has no vision for the politics, social aspects and capitalism in Poland. He adds that for the last 15 years his Party was busy only with administration of the country but not development and growth. I will add that "administration" means "corruption and robbery" for most Poles. More public money has been robbed in Poland than in any other country since WW II. continued
(Stan Tyminski)
aho William!
just saying "hello" ...
thought you would appreciate my latest artwork below.
|
warmest regards,
Millennium Twain
amanogawa@fastmail.com.au
www.fireships.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StarShipChina/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AenertialAether/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NuclearStructure/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LeagueOfTheLastDays/
I overheard a discussion about the Iraq war where the term liberation was used. 'Liberation' for Americans brings up images of France in World War 2. That's what they expected from Iraq -- flowers and dancing in the streets. How could they have so confused liberation with occupation? That bit of disillusionment has receded into the past and now the word 'liberation' means something different to Americans. They just congratulate themselves for getting rid of a nasty tyrant and hope that eventually all Iraqis will agree.
I started to think about making a dictionary of deceptive terms. Just off the top of my head I came up with:
Enemy combatants
Liberation
NGO (non-governmental organization)
Peace
World opinion
International community
Representative government
Well, I'm not a lexicographer and I put that task aside. Just five minutes later I checked my email and a correspondent had sent me a set of book reviews published last year in The South Slav Journal on the topic of media's lazy or malicious use of words. Talk about synchronicity.
http://southslavjournal.com/rev16.htm
Maurice Pergnier: Mots en guerre, Discourse mediatique et conflits balkaniques, Kosta Christitsh: La Resistance serbe, and Louis Dalmas: La pensée asphyxiée, published by L'Age d'Homme, reviewed by Sanja Boskovic
Boskovic says the "book by the well-known French linguist Maurice Pergnier, Mots en guerre, makes an attempt to analyse the Machiavellian usage of certain historical and ideological terms by the Western media,..." He mentions use of the terms "Good and Evil", "ethnic cleansing." Media accepted the Serb/Nazi equation to such an extent that Le Figaro reported that 400 bodies of Serb civilians were exhumed without using the term "mass grave" or "massacre" or "genocide" as was common when the victims were other ethnic groups.
Boskovic says that for Louis Dalmas (La pensée asphyxiée -- Strangled Thought) "the unmasking of the official statements and news about the Yugoslav crisis is not only the moral objective of every free intellectual and journalist, but also an efficient way of fighting the suppression of information and truth in the media."
The theme that haunts me is the misuse of information and the media's reliance on these stock terms and political positions. Specifically I can speak about the trial of Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague, which was supposed to be the trial of the century. This trial is no longer interesting to the general public and the occasional media reports use stock themes and echo the positions of the Prosecution.
And then there is the election. Do Bush and Kerry have anything to discuss other than Kerry's war record? Why are the political campaigns not held to a higher standard? The press seems to be as afraid of powerful lobbies as the politicians are. Remember that movie, "Network" where it was predicted that news would become entertainment? That is the awful truth today.
How can the public, the people, think straight when the media, traditional interlocutor between reality and the readers and viewers, becomes a misinformation tool? Freedom is at stake. If people don't know that they aren't free but think they are free -- is that enough?
See "Disinformation as a War Crime". WM
Back to the index of the Vagabond
William Markiewicz