Michael Parenti - Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My heartfelt thanks to Jenny Tayloe, Peter Livingston, and Elizabeth Valente for the assistance they rendered in the preparation of this book. A special word of thanks to my editor Gregory Ruggiero who first presented me with the idea for this reader, and persisted until I agreed to do it.

I.

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

MEDIA MOMENTS

For some time now I have been suffering from what I call media moments. We all have heard of senior moments, a term used mostly by people of mature years who suddenly experience a lapse in recall. The mind goes blank and the individual complains, Im having a senior moment. A media moment is a little different. It happens when you are reading or hearing what passes for the news. You are appalled and frustrated by the conservative bias, the evasions, the non sequiturs, and the outright disinformation. Your mind does not go blank; you simply wish it would.

I recall one media moment I experienced while listening to the BBC news. Now the BBC supposedly provides coverage superior to what is heard on U.S. mainstream media. It occasionally runs stories on European and Third World countries that are not likely to be carried by U.S. news sources. And BBC reporters ask confrontational questions of the personages they interview, applying a critical edge rarely shown by U.S. journalists. But the truth is, when it comes to addressing the fundamental questions of economic power, corporate dominance, and Western globalization, BBC journalists and commentators are as careful as their American counterparts not to venture beyond the parameters of permissible opinion.

The BBC newscast segment that gave me my media moment was a special report on asthma, of all things. It began by noting that the number of asthma sufferers has been increasing at the alarming rate of 50 percent each decade. Scientists are puzzled, for there is no easy explanation, the narrator told us. One factor is genetic predisposition, he said. We then heard from a British scientist who said, yes, there is definitely a hereditary factor behind asthma; it tends to run in families. Sure, I said to myself, asthma is increasing by 50 percent a decade because people with a genetic tendency toward the disease are becoming more sexually active and procreative than everyone else. I felt a media moment coming on.

There are other contributing factors to the asthma epidemic, the narrator continued, for instance lifestyle. He interviewed another scientist who confirmed this scientific finding. People are keeping cleaner homes, using air conditioning, and in general creating a more antiseptic lifestyle for themselves, the scientist said. This means they do not get enough exposure to pollen, dust, and dirt the way people did in the good old days. Hence, they fail to build up a proper defense to such irritants.

These comments made me think back to my younger years when I lived next to a construction site that deposited daily clouds of dust over my abode for months on end. Rather than building up a hardy resistance, I developed an acute sensitivity to dust and mold that has stayed with me to this day. Does exposure to a toxic environment really make us stronger? Looking at the evidence on cancer, lung diseases, and various occupational ailments, we would have to conclude that exposure does not inoculate us; rather it seems to suppress or overload our immune systems, leaving us more vulnerable, not less.

The BBC report on asthma then took us to India for some actualit. A young man suffering from the disease was speaking in a rasping voice, telling of his affliction. This was accompanied by the squishing sound of a hand-held respirator. The victim said he had no money for medication. The narrator concluded that the disease persists among the poor in such great numbers because they cannot afford medical treatment. Yes, I said to myself, but this doesnt tell us what causes so much asthma among the poor to begin with.

Another expert was interviewed. He said that in India, as in most of the world, asthma is found in greatest abundance in the congested cities, less so in the suburbs, and still less in the countryside. No explanation was given for this, but by then I could figure it out for myself: the inner-city slum dwellers of Calcutta enjoy too antiseptic a lifestyle; too much air-conditioning and cleanliness has deprived them of the chance to challenge and strengthen their immune systemsunlike their country cousins who have all that pollen and earthy dust to breathe and who thereby build up a natural resistance. At this point I could feel the media moment drawing ever closer.

The BBC report makes no mention of how neoliberal free market policies have driven people off the land, causing an explosion in slum populations throughout the world. These impoverished urban areas produce the highest asthma rates. And the report says nothing about how, as cigarette markets in the West become saturated, the tobacco companies vigorously pursue new promotional drives in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, leading to a dramatic climb in Third World smoking rates, which certainly does not help anyones respiratory system.

Finally the BBC narrator mentioned pollution. He said it may be a factor, but more study is needed. May? More study? In any case, he asked, Is pollution really a cause or is it merely a trigger? He seemed to be leaning toward trigger, although by then I was having trouble seeing the difference. The media moment had come upon me full force. I began talking back at my radio, posing such cogent and measured comments as You jackass, flunky, BBC announcer!

Media apologists like to point out that journalists face severe constraints of time and space, and must necessarily reduce complex realities into brief reports; hence, issues are conflated, and omissions and oversights are inevitable. But this BBC report went on for some ten minutes, quite a long time by newscast standards. There would have been enough time to mention how the destruction of rain forests and the dramatic increase in industrial emissions have contributed to an alarming CO2 buildup and a commensurate decline in the atmospheres oxygen content. The BBC could have told us how the oil cartels have kept us hooked on fossil fuel, while refusing to develop nonpolluting, inexpensive tidal, wind, thermal, and solar energy systems.

And there would have been ample opportunity to say something about how the use of automobiles has skyrocketed throughout the entire world, causing severe damage to air quality, especially in cities. One study found that children who live within 250 feet of busy roads had a 50 percent higher risk of developing asthma than those who do not. The asthma risk decreased to normal for children living about 600 feet or more away from a busy road. The researchers noted that major sources of air pollution like highways should not be the only cause for concern. Local roads also create a serious asthma hazard.

But rather than digging into the actual and less speculative causes of asthma, including the direct link to air pollution, this BBC report chose to be balanced and objective by blaming the victims, their genetic predisposition, their antiseptic lifestyles, and their inability to buy medications.

Newscasters who want to keep their careers afloat learn the fine art of evasion. We should not accuse them of doing a poor or sloppy job of reporting. If anything, with great skill they skirt around the most important points of a story. With much finesse they say a lot about very little, serving up heaps of junk news filled with so many empty calories and so few nutrients. Thus do they avoid offending those who wield politico-economic power while giving every appearance of judicious moderation and balance. It is enough to take your breath away.

LIBERAL MEDIA YET TO BE FOUND