PBS Really Not "Public" Any More

For some time now I have been very disappointed and displeased with PBS’s news coverage. Very mellow, non-controversial, no-balance reporting – as opposed to the recentlly discontinued Bill Moyers Journal hard-hitting pieces. The only difference to the commercial stations is the lack of reports on local fires and babies falling out of windows.

Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
“A multi-part FAIR exposé of PBS's most prominent news and public affairs programs demonstrates that public television is failing to live up to its mission to provide an alternative to commercial television, to give voice to those "who would otherwise go unheard" and help viewers to "see America whole, in all its diversity," in the words of public TV's founding document.”

Among other rather troubling findings, this one irks me the most.

“-- On segments focusing on the Afghan War, though polls show consistent majorities of Americans have opposed the war for more than a year, not a single NewsHour guest represented an antiwar group or expressed antiwar views. (Emphasis mine) Similarly, no representative of a human rights or humanitarian organization appeared on the NewsHour during the study period.”

Published on Tuesday, October 19, 2010 by FAIR

$80,000 to Kill or Miss- Poof ... Gone

Here is a thought: How much common sense does it make to use a high-tech, high-priced piece of U.S. weaponry, a huge shoulder-fired rocket called Javelin, in Afghanistan? “Each Javelin round costs $80,000, and the idea that it's fired by a guy who doesn’t make that in a year at a guy who doesn’t make that in a lifetime is somehow so outrageous it almost makes the war seem winnable.” (from Sebastian Junger’s book WAR, see below))

In the article Publish or Perish: Getting a Read on American War Nick Turse reviews writings on the current wars and compares them with the literature on the Vietnam war. He writes “… there is much to be learned from Junger’s in-print version of Americans-at-war. His blow-by-blow accounts of small unit combat actions, for instance, drive home the tremendous firepower American troops unleash on enemies often armed with little more than rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. Page after page tallies up American technology and firepower: M-4 assault rifles (some with M-203 grenade launchers), Squad Automatic Weapons or SAWs, .50 caliber machine guns, M-240 machine guns, Mark-19 automatic grenade launchers, mortars, 155 mm artillery, surveillance drones, Apache attack helicopters, AC-130 Spectre gunships, A-10 Warthogs, F-15 and F-16 fighter-bombers, B-52 and B-1 bombers, all often brought to bear against boys who may be wielding nothing more than Lee-Enfield bolt-action rifles -- a state of the art weapon when introduced. That, however, was in the 1890s.”

Check out the whole article at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/14-7 published by www.CommonDreams.org

With a fraction of the moneys spent on these deadly toys, how many jobs could we “grow”, how many hungry children could we feed, here and the world over, how many homeless people could we help? Too much horse sense, probably! And not really profitable.

There are Alternatives to War

Common Sense: Wars do not solve problems, they create more problems and more severe ones!

Michael Nagler, president of the Metta Center for Nonviolence in Berkeley, California, writes in today's Common Dreams News (go to http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/27-2). I want to draw your attention to the three points listed below.

"I encourage anyone who hasn’t already done so to familiarize him- or herself with the alternatives to war that fall into three broad categories: 1) living more lightly on the earth, since most wars today are fought over its diminishing resources; 2) diplomacy, mediation, and international institutions that can keep disputes from turning into wars, and 3) nonviolent mechanisms to deal with the wars that nonetheless break out, like the unarmed interventions just mentioned that are helping to reduce violence in trouble spots all over the world now. I recommend that we all learn about these things and talk about them with family, friends, and our congressmen or women. You may not get anything but raised eyebrows at first, but remember what Gandhi said about a real innovation: “First they ignore you; then they laugh at you; then they fight you – and then you win.” Provided you have learned to fight nonviolently. That must be the subject of another article."

Where are the Solutions?

Again we are in Pledge-Campaign-Promise-Politicking-Mode and Common Sense seems to have vanished from the scene. Every party and every candidate is promising what they have been promising for eons, just with a few variations and with a lot less options. Less taxes, more taxes, balancing the budget, and so forth. My favorite is "Listening to the Voters" -- when did that happen the last time? Most of the campaign time and money is spent on besmearing the OTHER, never mind on 'solutions.'

That is what I am really missing, Common Sense Solutions. Vague phrases are not solutions. Headlines are not solutions. Touting numbers that no one can verify or even understand is not a solution. Does that mean - worst scenario - that nobody has any solutions? That is what I believe. I am sure there are people who have answers but if they state them out loud they will be disappeared, one way or another. Nobody wants to say or hear the truth. Why are we fighting wars costing trillions? Why can we not tax people making obscene, unspendable amounts of money? Why can we not mandate greener living? Why can we not feed everybody?

The SYSTEM is so screwed up, my solution would be to drop it and start anew. Like untying a knot, you have to start with one loose end. We can do that with proper leadership. Who is out there to lead us?

More on Where do Jobs Come From?

I do not know where I picked this up, but it is still relevant. The last paragraph really scares me - or - it shows a reality we will have to deal with. Good Luck.

I am still looking for the one article/statistic/speech that tells me where the jobs will be coming from. All I can find is how many jobs per year we will have to add to pull even with the employment/unemployment status of many years ago.

"What America needs right now is not economic growth, it's economic development, which is defined as the development of economic wealth of a country for the well-being of its inhabitants. Normally a concept discussed in relation to developing countries, it is now clearly what we need in America after several decades of de-industrialization, union-busting, and exporting of jobs and manufacturing, and a dramatic widening of the gap between the rich and the rest of the population.

It has often been said that India's middle class constitutes a modern developed country the size of Belgium or Austria within a larger Third World country. America's poor constitute a Third World country the size of South Africa within a larger modern developed country. "

Does Rape and Torture Need Definition?

In a recent book group discussion of "Little Bee" (by Chris Cleave) we got stranded at the terms "torture" and "rape" when somebody asked for a definition. Do we really need a definintion of torture which then is subject to tweaking by a phalanx of opinionated lawyers, leading to another discussion altogether and away from the basic question: What is torture? Applying Common Sense I would say, if you hurt me in any way to get something from me that I am unwilling to give, then you tortured me. Basta! as the Italians say. That's it. How much it hurts, what body part you apply it to, how long it lasts, if organs fail or not - is really irrelevant. IT IS TORTURE.

The same goes for rape. If you take what somebody is unwilling to give then it is RAPE. She was asking for it, she dressed provocatively, and other common arguments are -again- irrelevant. It is the ACT we are naming and, hopefully, punishing.

Imagine -- a world functioning based on common sense originating in our pure conscience! How much time, how many words, how many lies, how much suffering we would save ourselves and others. Why is our innate conscience, which knows the difference between whole and unwhole, hidden so deeply? Is it buried by centuries of deception, demagoguery, ignorance and failure to listen and act upon what we are told by the inner voice? Is it ignored by cowardice or inbred callousness? Maybe some genetic re-engineering is in order. We KNOW, and we could act far better than we are. Namaste!

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs -- WHERE?

There is some logic and Common Sense missing in the jobs debate. In my opinion, at least, and I am no economist or the like. So excuse me for a moment while I repeat the mantras on the subject we keep hearing (ad nauseam!): we must create jobs, they must come from the private sector, small businesses need to hire people -- then the numbers will improve. Well, I do not believe this scheme will work. Let's assume small businesses hire lots of people which then in turn produce lots of products (what? may I ask - everything I have bought within the last six months was "Made in China" or in some other cheap-labor country). And who will now buy these products? In volumes that will shore up the economy? With 30 Million people unemployed or underemployed, who has the money to buy anything but the bare necessities?

None of the pundits and/or government officials have mentioned any specifics where these millions of people could be employed and what they are supposed to produce. Last night, on her last day in the White House, the Chair of the President's Economic Advisors, Christina Romer, in an interview aired on PBS, complained very lightheartedly about the lack of aggressiveness in the Administration. Aggressiveness is what we need, I think. New thinking and honest thinking. I would like to see some statistics of the labor market showing the sectors where significant growth could be expected. You experts out there, put on your thinker's hats, rather than keep repeating the empty phrases we keep hearing over and over again. Please give us some hope.