Surviving Capitalism (Not) : New York Times Rewrites Gaza Headline: Was It Too Accurate?

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, July 20, 2014

New York Times Rewrites Gaza Headline: Was It Too Accurate?

Click here to access article by Peter Hart from Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.

This is only one more tiny illustration of how ruling class media carefully hones it news reporting so that their class interests are not harmed. Because the story has been widely reported by a number of independent sources, they have no choice but to cover the incident. Thus, the task then becomes to cover it in a way that reduces any damage that the coverage might cause to their ruling class, and their strategically important Zionist-Israeli section of the capitalist Empire.

NBC news directors were so incensed over one of their reporter's coverage of this same event that they pulled him from the area.

And now we are seeing the grossest forms of propaganda backing the Empire's actions in Ukraine.

The point I wish to stress is that all coverage by all the Empire's leading capitalist media corporations are presented from this class point of view. So then, if you understand that, it is not too much of a stretch to understand that all important institutions of society are likewise guided to serve the same ruling class. You will find the same bias shaping actions in legislation, court proceedings, education, entertainment, etc.

You must understand that you live in a society that has a social-economic class structure which is shaped by a capitalist system, a system which gives overwhelming rights to "owners" of property, and permits property to be owned by individuals that is thoroughly social in nature. What is of major significance is that such rights also bring to these individuals vast amounts of wealth and power. That is precisely why they go to such extreme lengths to control everything in society and beyond that might threaten the extreme wealth and power they enjoy. That is precisely why they engage in all kinds of practices that ultimately destroy economies and whole nations, and wage wars against nations and peoples who interfere with their designs.