| Number 90 | October 13, 2000 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, The piece "Multiple-Choice Democracy and Your Vote " started out as a piece about the current presidential elections. After working for some time on it, I realized that the subject does not interest me. So the piece morphed into what it is now. See what you think. Elsewhere in this issue are some resources to help you learn about the current election, if you care and haven't made up your mind already. There's a word or two about the Senate and the House. Think about that a little bit if you haven't. I actually watched the Presidential debate a couple of days ago. I will not say anything about it. I don't know yet what next week's issue of the Notes will be about; I'll decide after I get my apple-picking and sauce-making out of the way this weekend. But one thing's for sure; it won't be about those two evil clowns. I promise. I have been forgetting to thank all the readers who write to me. I appreciate it so much! And I continue to receive generous financial donations in the mail. I'm working hard to justify your faith in me. Thank you. I am trying a few minor layout improvements this week in the E-mail version of the Notes. Let me know if this makes your copy hard to read. (It's supposed to make it easier!) Nygaard |
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In an editorial entitled "Prague Protests: Bashing Those Who Truly Serve the Poor," the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) quoted a protester named Dvorska at the recent annual meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund as saying "We want the IMF and the World Bank to shut down." But that's not the Quote of the Week. That quote is the Star Trib's comment following Dvorska's plea:
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Human beings are able to assign meaning to something only if we can connect it to something that already has meaning to us. When new information comes along, we attach it to these "anchors" of pre-existing knowledge. If we cannot figure out how to attach it in some way, the new information remains essentially meaningless. And even before this "anchoring" process can occur, we have to filter through the immense number of stimuli coming at us and decide what deserves our attention. I suggest that there are forces at work in our culture -- indeed, any culture -- that play a large role in dictating what we pay attention to and what will remain outside of our consciousness. The power to decide what our "anchors" are, to decide what stimulates us and what remains meaningless, is real power. Children's Books Two weeks ago I brought your attention to a front-page article in the New York Times about marketing to infants ("Children = Markets", NN #88). I think this article hints at the breadth and magnitude of this power, and also indicates the extent to which this power is held in the U.S. by corporations. The article noted the growing use of brand-name products as the subjects of children's "how-to-read" and "how-to-count" books. Instead of counting sheep or trees, children in these books learn about numbers by counting Oreos or Skittles. The article pointed out that these product-oriented children's books were developed by a daycare provider in Massachusetts who noticed that her struggles to hold the attention of her students ended when she discovered that "her students' interest perked up at brand names they recognized from advertisements." The fact that these kids are going to grow up with their consumer loyalties having been imposed on them before they were equipped to assess them is horrifying enough, but it's just the tip of the iceberg. The article includes a couple of comments from individual citizens that can be read as flags of surrender to the might of corporate culture. The head of a New Hampshire parent-teacher organization claims that these advertising books turn snack and cereal advertisements to a worthy purpose: "Any book that they recognize for whatever reason and read and enjoy is a good thing. I guess product names are a way of life for us now." Kind of like the weather, we are supposed to believe. The point is reinforced by a quote from the president of HarperCollins children's division: "The whole issue of the commercialization of children's books, that came a lot of years earlier." The dangerous message that is reinforced in this otherwise fascinating news report on the commercialization of childhood is the message that, while you may like this trend or you may hate it, THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. This is the powerful anti-democratic message that is promoted by all elites, including those who run our major media corporations. It would not be difficult to insert a message of empowerment into an article like this. It would involve giving contact information for organized groups willing to challenge the trend, or telling stories of successful resistance to such commercialization. But in mainstream media, this is seen as "partisan" journalism, or "advocacy" journalism, and is not tolerated. This is why, so often, even the best stories in the mainstream press end up as nothing more than interesting cocktail-party conversation. Lots of clucking of the tongue and shaking of the head, but no real civic response aimed at reshaping the undesirable social realities of the day. Instead, corporate culture remains like the weather. We can talk about it, complain about it, monitor it, and predict it. But we can't change it. Bombing in the Gulf of Yemen As I was writing this, I heard a brief story on National Public Radio about an explosion in the Gulf of Yemen that killed four people on the U.S. warship Cole. Let me digress for a moment, as this illustrates very well the point I am trying to make. Despite the lack of any actual evidence, the NPR discussion assumed the explosion was a "terrorist" incident (I'll leave that very interesting assumption alone for now.) Then they proceeded to speculate about how a terrorist could pull off such an attack against a very well-armed military gun ship. That's all they talked about. There is a larger political culture that is assumed here by the editors and reporters at NPR, a culture that is well-understood by most mainstream journalists, although it is rarely if ever articulated. They don't need to articulate it, since it is the dominant culture and thus is rarely questioned by their listeners. That culture makes it unnecessary to explain why an attack like this might happen, which would be the first step in taking action that might prevent such attacks in the future. U.S. political culture says that such an act is always carried out by "terrorists" who are totally insane. Since insane terrorists couldn't possibly have any rational basis for choosing their targets, why bother to speculate about motivation? This example illustrates the power of the larger culture, which was in place and functioning before this NPR story was put together, and which dictated 1) What went into the story, 2) What was left out of the story, 3) That this was a "story" at all, and 4) Where the responsibility lay for these deaths (Answer: Elsewhere) Bombings and Books What unites these two stories, about children's books and people dying in Southwest Asia, is the anti-democratic message I mentioned above. "Terrorism" is bad, but there is nothing you can do about it, except after the fact. The commercialization of children's books is bad, but that decision "came a lot of years earlier," and you had nothing to say about it. So just deal with it. I started out by talking about using commercial images to teach counting to kids. When I was a child, our schoolteachers used dehumanized racist images to teach counting ("One little, two little, three little Indians..."), but I'm not sure whether this was because we children "perked up" at images of the "little Indian boys" of our fantasies, or whether it was some sort of Anglo-bonding exercise that made the adults feel comfortable. I'll never know. Perhaps the movement from the imperialist language of my youth to the commercial language of today is an improvement. Perhaps not. But both examples illustrate that the power to shape our consciousness currently rests, for the most part, outside of our electoral process. I recommend that you go out and vote on November 7th. But make sure that it's not all you do. When you cast your vote, try to make it just one small part of a larger plan to become an active participant in the political culture. If we can change the larger culture enough, then perhaps our democratic process can begin to subordinate the power of our corporate culture to the power of our citizens. Only then will we begin to move beyond Multiple-Choice to Participatory democracy. |
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Readers have asked me to say something about the presidential election, so I will oblige this week. I don't have much to say that you couldn't easily get elsewhere, so I will limit my own comments and mostly refer you to some Internet and other resources for you to educate yourself on whatever aspects of the campaign interest you. My apologies to those paper subscribers who do not own a computer, but the Internet is by far the best source of up-to-date information on this stuff. Access can be had at the nearest library; ask your librarian to get you started. There are three or four candidates that ‘most everyone knows about, but there are actually more than 80 people officially running for president of the United States. Who knew? Many of them, unlike the "Big Two," actually have some interesting things to say. Start by checking out Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke, the Green Party candidates. Find them at http://votenader.org/. The worst way to learn about a candidate is to listen to what they say when they are trying to get elected. The best way to learn about a candidate is to look at what they have actually done. Perhaps the best place to go on the Internet for this sort of information is Project Vote Smart. Their site really has it all, as far as information about candidates. Go to the site and select your state, and you can look up voting records, special-interest-group rankings, campaign funding information, and you-name-it for your Senate or House candidates. Find Project Vote Smart at http://www.vote-smart.org/index.phtml or call them at 1-888-868-3762 and ask them to send you their "Voter's Self-Defense Manual." It'll come in a few days. Probably the best website for discovering the role of money in the elections is the site of the Center for Public Integrity at http://www.publicintegrity.org. Especially check out their "Campaign 2000" page. Their phone is 202-466-1300 Another good site for tracking the money trail is a group called Public Campaign. Check out their special report "The Color of Money: Campaign Contributions and Race." They can be found at: http://www.publicampaign.org/. Or call them at 202-293-0222 I can't imagine that Nygaard Notes readers have not already made up their minds on the presidential race, but just in case you want some info to use when talking to your friends and family, here are a couple of places to look: If you want to know the dirt on Al Gore, you may want to read "Al Gore: A User's Manual," by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. They can't stand Al Gore, and they explain why in the book. Available at your favorite locally-owned independent bookstore. For a taste of what the book contains, visit http://www.counterpunch.org/goremanual.html. If you want to know the dirt on George W. Bush, check out the situation in Texas. There are a couple of ways to do that on the Internet. Start with the Center for Public Policy Priorities, who describe themselves as "a non-partisan, non-profit policy research organization seeking sound solutions to the challenges faced by low- and moderate-income Texans." They'll give you a hint of life in Texas under Bush. Find them at http://www.cppp.org/who/index.html. Another good source for info on life in Texas is a report called "State of the Lone Star State: How Life in Texas Measures Up," produced by a group called Texans for Public Justice. Find them at http://www.tpj.org. The best place to learn about Nader and LaDuke is probably ZNet at http://www.zmag.org/ZNETTOPnoanimation.html. They have a whole section on the Nader campaign. Think about the House and Senate elections for a moment. One of the most exciting parts about this campaign is the possibility that the Democratic Party might win control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Long-time readers know that I am not a big Democrat, by any means, but the big thing here is the specific individuals who would become committee and sub-committee chairmen if the Democrats take over. People like Rep. John Conyers of Michigan as head of the Judiciary Committee, instead of Henry Hyde. And, of course, Minnesotans have a chance to get rid of Senator Rod "Get Rid of The Income Tax" Grams. |