| Number 224 | October 3, 2003 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, Over the years I have been producing Nygaard Notes, I just noticed that I have published over 1,000 pages of scintillating prose. How about that? Many people have asked me, and the answer is “Yes, I have considered writing a book.” The thing about a book is that it takes time. So, if any of you readers out there have an extra $5-10,000 sitting around and want to make it available to Nygaard Notes so I can put together a book, just let me know. You know where to find me. Welcome to the new readers this week. I always like feedback on the Notes, and will try my best to respond personally to all who contact me. I really count on readers to keep me on my toes, so please don’t be bashful! Heads up: It is almost time for the twice-a-year Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive, where I ask readers to make voluntary donations to the Notes to allow me the time to do the investigating and exploring to which y’all have become accustomed. This October’s Drive will include an idea for non-financial support, as well. More next week... Hasta la proxima, Nygaard |
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Here are a few selected “quotes” from a little-noticed news item headlined “U.S. Income Gap Widening, Study Says,” which appeared on page 2 of the Business Section of the New York Times (“All The News That’s Fit To Print”) of September 25:
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I am rather shocked to notice that I have never in the 1,148 pages (so far) of Nygaard Notes highlighted the website of the group “Project Censored.” Project Censored operates out of Sonoma State University in California. Every year since 1994 they have published a report highlighting what they call “The Top 25 Censored Media Stories” of the previous year in the United States. In their own words, “The Essential Issue raised by the project is the failure of the mass media to provide the people with all the information they need to make informed decisions concerning their own lives and in the voting booth.” In this regard, their use of the word “censored” is different than some people might use. They don’t mean that these stories were never published, nor that some censoring authority punished or drove out of business the media organizations that did publish the stories. That would be crude, Soviet-style censorship, and we don’t have that in the United States, for the most part (yet). What we have here is what the Project refers to as ““stories about significant issues of which the public should be aware, but is not, for one reason or another.” Note that they don’t even try to theorize about WHY these stories are mostly unknown. The important point is that they are, “for one reason or another.” As an example, the Number 1 story for 2002-2003 is “The Neoconservative Plan for Global Dominance.” Now, I’ve talked about this. Other “alternative” media sources have talked about this. But the idea that many high-ranking officials in the U.S. government have a fairly explicit plan for a world that is run more-or-less directly from Washington DC is an idea that sounds “strange, almost paranoid, to many Americans.” That’s how the New York Times put it when reporting that, despite its apparent looniness, this view “is heard in serious and respectable places in Europe.” Project Censored gives you the story on this story. A few other sentences from the newest Project Censored report may also sound “strange, almost paranoid” to the Gatekeepers of Consciousness in the agenda-setting media. Such as, “The United States is a signatory to nine multilateral treaties that it has either blatantly violated or gradually subverted,” or “The April 11, 2002 military coup in Venezuela was supported by the United States government.” Such ideas may have been reported once or twice in the corporate media, perhaps in the Omaha World-Herald or the St. Petersburg Times, or even in one of the major papers. So they haven’t been “censored” in the totalitarian sense. But in the important sense of an idea being kept out of the general public discourse, and out of the consciousness of the “average” citizen, we know there are many important stories that are indeed “censored.” You can read about 25 such stories in the 2004 version of “The Top 25 Censored Media Stories” which has just been released. To order the report in book form, call 707-664-2500. To read the online version, visit their website at: http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2004/index.html.
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Seeking to explain the falling popularity of U.S. policy in Iraq, and the similarly falling popularity of the current resident of the White House, some have taken to blaming the media. “Why does the media only report the bad news from Iraq?” goes the plaintive cry. Apparently the plea for “good news” is being heard in the newsroom of the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!), judging by a photograph in that paper on Sunday, September 21. My eye was caught by a large picture of smiling military men, apparently carrying a colleague on their shoulders in triumph. The large caption at the top said, “And the winner is...” The caption underneath the photo said, “Not all the news from Iraq is bleak. On Saturday at the U.S. base in Mosul, Iraqi soldiers hoisted Specialist Kevin Rice of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division on their shoulders to give him a victory ride after Rice won a boxing match.” “Rice won a boxing match.” This is the “good news” that reactionary forces in this country have been demanding? They are scraping pretty close to the bottom of the news barrel to come up with this one, methinks. But, if powerful people think we need “good news,” then there is a “demand” that the market must supply. Also, consider that—as with reporting on any conflict, sporting or “real”—the victory that is “good news” for one side is, obviously, bad news for the loser. It was an eye-catching photo, though. |
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Sometimes news gets “reported,” but the real story does not. Take, for example, a story that appeared in the New York Times (“All The News That’s Fit To Print”) of September 18. “In A Reversal, Ashcroft Lifts Secrecy of Data,” read the headline. For those who don’t know, Section 215 of the infamous USA-PATRIOT Act would allow agents of the government to “examine library records, business documents, computer data and other material in investigations,” if they claim to be looking for “terrorists.” Furthermore, the law says that libraries that are served with demands for these records must keep secret the fact that they have been served. And, finally, whatever records the government itself may have on its activities in the libraries are classified. The result is that nobody in the public can know who the government is spying on. In the days before September 18, Mr. Ashcroft had ridiculed librarians and civil libertarians (I’m one of them, I guess) who had complained about the law’s encroachment on the privacy of library patrons. Some had noticed, as well, the possible First Amendment issues raised by the implication that one’s thoughts (i.e., what one is reading and, presumably, thinking) may be grounds for prosecution by the Feds. The Attorney General called these concerns “baseless hysteria.” Well, baseless or not, the Times reported on September 18th that the Attorney General had “reversed course”and “agreed to declassify data showing how often federal agents had demanded records from libraries and other institutions.” The Times added that “the decision appeared to be a response to criticism that Mr. Ashcroft received this week [about his comments on hysterical librarians].” The final sentence in the Times’ article said that Mark Corallo, a department spokesman, said Mr. Ashcroft “felt it was in the public interest and the national security interest to have these numbers declassified.” So, the numbers are classified for National Security reasons, and declassified for the same reason. Once again, we appear to be in Wonderland. What’s the real story here? Well, there are a couple of them. One thing the story is NOT is that the AG decided to declassify these numbers. The immediate real story is abuse of the classification authority. Think about it: If Ashcroft is declassifying the numbers now, “in the public interest,” then the obvious question is: Why was the information classified to begin with? The Times doesn’t ask. The larger, and ongoing, “real story” is the pattern of the Bush administration’s reducing of the amount of information available to the public about how our government is operating. Excessive and arbitrary classification is only one part of it. A few other parts: Some federal data is no longer being gathered; other information is no longer being reported; some formerly-free information is now available only for a fee. I’ll be reporting in coming months on the increasing darkness surrounding our government’s behavior. Stay tuned. PostScript: The very next day, September 19, the media reported that the declassified documents showed that the Justice Department had NEVER used its authority to demand records of library use. Nobody has actually seen the records, apparently; the media reported on a memo about the contents of the documents written by ... John Ashcroft. Sounds like proof to me! “The charges of the hysterics,” Mr Ashcroft told police in Memphis after he had exonerated himself, “are revealed for what they are: castles in the air built on misrepresentation; supported by unfounded fear; held aloft by hysteria.” |
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The ambitious effort of Minnesota’s relatively new Republican Governor, Tim Pawlenty, to remake the state’s primary and secondary educational systems is worth a lot of attention and discussion. I’m not going to go into it now, but a small comment by our state’s Commissioner of Education last week says a lot, I think. One of the processes underway at the moment is an effort at the state level to change the curriculum of the state’s grade schools and high schools in the areas of Science and Social Studies. The previous state guidelines were known as the Profile of Learning, which has now been abolished. New standards have been drafted and put on a fast track for approval. Not everyone is happy about the proposed Pawlenty standards, the first public hearing on which was held a couple of weeks ago in St. Paul. Some comments from that hearing were reported in the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) of September 23, in an article headlined “Standards Face a Critical Crowd.” As Minnesota Teacher of the Year Gino Marchetti put it, “I'm flabbergasted by the things we're going to ask our children to do. One of my biggest problems with the social studies is it seems out of balance. It's the winners who write the history. Let's talk history; let's not talk propaganda.” That seems like a good point, and perspective on this comment can be gained by a remark the Star Trib reporter made, saying that Ms. Yecke “has noticed a big difference between what parents and teachers say about the draft requirements.” Yecke was quoted in this regard as saying, “Educators are saying they want to show what’s good about America and what’s bad about America. Parents are saying they want to hear what’s good about America.” Ignore for a moment the fact that “educators” are also “parents” in many cases, and consider what the Commissioner is saying. She appears to be proposing that there are two, equally valid, “sides” to the disagreement about what kind of Social Studies we should teach our kids. One “side” says we should make a value judgement about what is “good” and “bad” about our country, and then systematically censor out what is defined (by somebody) as “bad.” The other side says that students should be taught about both the “good” and the “bad” in our nation’s history. That’s a “big difference,” alright, and clearly reveals the ideological nature of the fight about these standards, and of the cultural war of which this fight is a small part. I’m not against making value judgements—this little article of mine is filled with value judgements, in fact. If you want to see for yourself what the proposed standards look like, you can find the 56-page draft on the website of the MN Department of Education at http://education.state.mn.us. (Click on “New Science and Social Studies Standards.”) You wouldn’t know it from reading the newspaper, but a group has formed in opposition to the Yecke standards, calling itself Minnesotans Against Proposed Social Studies Standards. They have a petition and everything! Find out more about them by visiting http://mapsss.no-ip.org/. |