Leave the Talking Points at the Door

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

~First two stanzas of Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise”

I am an extremely political person. I love watching election returns, and hoping against hope that my candidate will come out the victor. I am physically unable, as many are, to be impartial when it comes to such matters.
Recently, I went to Philadelphia to campaign for my candidate, Hillary Clinton, in the recent Democratic primaries. I knocked on doors in two lower-middle class neighborhoods in Northeast Philly. Though I was inspired by the voters I talked to, there was an incident on the trip that, for the first time, really turned me off to the politics of politics. I was having a conversation with a 29 year-old Broadway producer, or so he said. (To be honest, I am unsure whether he was 29 or a Broadway producer.) He was an avid Hillary Clinton supporter. It was clear that he had donated the top amount to her campaign and had volunteered for her a number of times since the race began.
We got to talking and I asked whether he would vote for Barack Obama if Hillary didn’t end up getting the nomination. His answer: unequivocally NO. What’s more, he planned on using his “large gay income” to get at least 1 million voters in New York City alone to write Hillary’s name in on the ballot on election day in November. He told me that, although he wouldn’t vote for McCain, he would rather see him win so that Hillary would be in a prime position to run again, and win, in 2012.
After this conversation, we didn’t speak again for the rest of the trip.
It has taken me awhile to grapple with the fact that there are people out there who are prepared to see more harm done to the country in order to elect their favorite candidate. In a Gallup poll that was released at the end of March, 28% of Clinton voters said they would vote for McCain over Obama and 19% of Obama supporters said they would vote for McCain over Clinton. And this does not even take into account the Broadway producer-types who will write in their preferred candidate regardless. What is happening?
As of May 1, 2008, we have been in Iraq for 1,867 days. My two year-old cousin has never known a time when the United States of America has not been at war. John McCain has said that we could be in Iraq for another “hundred years.” To be sure, that would be another 36,500 days. As of the end of April 2008, 4063 American soldiers have died in Iraq, and it is estimated that anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000 more soldiers have been wounded. These are men and women who are coming back from the region without limbs, paralyzed, both physically and emotionally. How many people do these deaths and these injuries affect? There is no way of knowing, but I would venture to guess tens of millions. And this is not even taking into account the million or more Iraqis, many who saw our invasion as a chance at true freedom, who have died since 2003.
Aside from the war, the problems facing us here at home have been monumental. We are in a subprime mortgage mess that the government relies on us to never quite understand. The dollar has dropped in value so much that it is now equal in value to 1.56 euros. The average price of a gallon of gasoline is $3.60 up from $1.46 when the Bush administration began. Over the past years, we have seen natural disasters unlike any in recent history. Hurricane Katrina ended the lives of at least 2,500 people. Although it has been forgotten by all but a few, the effects of that hurricane are still being felt in New Orleans and the surrounding areas.
Many of these facts come as a shock to most. Why is that? Why are we not ‘tying yellow ribbons ‘round our old oak trees’ and demanding that this war come to an end? Why are we not insisting that the government help bail out the American people, in the same way they bailed out Bear Stearns just a few shorts months ago?
Information starts and ends with corporations, who rely on ratings and readership to turn a profit. When Amy Goodman, host of the independent, corporate-free, newscast, Democracy Now!, spoke to my Journalism class last month, she stressed the importance of the ‘sound-bite’ to the mainstream media. She said that it is easy to pull out the now infamous Rev. Wright ‘God Damn America’ sound-bite and condemn him for saying it. To do so is missing the point. What we have to say cannot be summed up in 7 seconds. Maybe it takes 7 minutes, or 7 hours, or 7 days. More than this, though, it takes discussion. That is what is so often missing from the political arena: the ability to have a productive discussion.
I admit that many times I sit in my classes at New York University and wait for my opportunity to speak. I hear sound-bites from those around me and I react without listening to their full comments. I raise my hand, or I shout out, and nothing is accomplished because, more than likely, the person I am rebutting is busy conjuring up their next defense. Listening is boring, especially for highly opinionated people. I want to say what I mean and mean what I say and get others to mean what I say too. This is not the most productive way to go about a discussion, or to solve problems. Perhaps allowing someone to work out their thoughts, in a free-flowing way, and then allowing the next person to do the same thing, is a more effective strategy.
My own unwillingness to listen, though, is a microcosm of the type of ‘news’ coverage we see every day in the mainstream media, particularly on the three major cable news networks, CNN, MSNBC, and of course, Fox News. The formats of programs such as Anderson Cooper 360 (CNN), Hardball with Chris Matthews (MSNBC), and Hannity and Colmes (Fox) are all the same. And the rancor has only gotten louder and more unbearable over the past months. The host introduces some inane issue, such as the recent Rev. Jeremiah Wright debacle, and then brings in a panel of ‘experts’ who supposedly all have different views on that issue. The problem is that very rarely is a productive discussion ever had. The panelists all come in with talking points and make sure never to defer from them. Each segment becomes a set of sound-bites strung together with the help of a semi-charismatic, mostly arrogant, host.
Perhaps the most troubling part is that some in the media seem to think that this is the best way to go about delivering the news. On April 30, Ed Schultz, a syndicated liberal radio host, appeared on David Gregory’s MSNBC slugfest Race for the White House. He was saying that now that Senator Obama had been so clearly damaged by the Rev. Wright controversy, it might befit him to go negative on Hillary Clinton, in order to change the subject. He went on to say that it would be nice if this would all go away but the “culture of the media” will not let that happen. Perhaps that is exactly what needs to change: the culture of the media.
June Jordan, the activist, poet, and hero, said that we must “tell the truth in order to change the truth.” The truth in so much of the media is that it is owned by powerful corporations. CNN is owned by Time Warner. MSNBC is owned by General Electric in conjunction with Microsoft. And Fox News is owned by News Corporation (Rupert Murdoch.) These three channels are staples in at least 50% of U.S. homes according to Los Angeles Independent Media. This means that five major corporations, along with Viacom/Westinghouse (CBS) and Disney (ABC,) control all the mainstream television news. What’s more, collectively, these corporations donated more than 8.4 million dollars to President George W. Bush’s campaigns. The breakdown is below:

Time Warner: 1.6 million
GE/Microsoft: 3.3 million
News Corp.: 2.9 million
Disney: 640,000 thousand

Although Viacom/Westinghouse doesn’t appear to have donated to the GOP, the Westinghouse Electric Company is part of the Nuclear Utilities Business Group of British Nuclear Fuels, of which Frank Carlucci is number one on the board of directors. Frank Carlucci is also a member of The Carlyle Group, which is one of the largest investment firms in the country and has made millions of dollars on government contracts having to do with the Iraq War and the supposed war on terrorism. According to Covenant News, the group, which has been active in setting up PAC groups to help elect George W. Bush, has made its money by, among other services, “providing logistics support to the U.S. military and making metal-bond structures in fighter jets and missiles.”
The question then is, are we really willing to hand our freedom of speech over to just five points of view, especially five points of view that are all, at least ideologically, so seemingly similar?
Not all the news about the news is bad though. There are journalists and activists out there who are willing to take a stand against those who are hell-bent on manipulating information to make a profit.
Whether it be Emily and Sarah Kunstler, daughters of the legendary radical lawyer WIlliam Kunstler, and founders of “Off-Center Media,” who are practicing “propaganda journalism” by making advocacy videos on behalf of those who would not have a voice otherwise, such as a group of African American citizens in Tulia, Texas who were wrongfully accused of dealing cocaine based on their race. Whether it be Phil Donahue, the talk show legend, fired from MSNBC largely based on his anti-war views in 2003, who just made a film about a soldier who was paralyzed in the Iraq War, Body of War. Or whether it is a student in a journalism class who writes an article about how Earth Day came and went this year with very little fanfare from those in powerful governmental roles.
These people, along with many others, form a community that is insisting on change, a community that is ready, willing, and able to speak the truth in order to change the truth. They have “blue grit,” as author and radio host Laura Flanders might say. Traditional journalists they are not, but tradition is not what is important here. What is important is point of view. The news will never be objective. It is ever-changing, and if large corporations are able to dictate what voices they want heard, why can’t we raise the voices that we want heard even louder? Contrary to our culture of politeness, which is akin to the aforementioned culture of the media, there is no shame in opening your window and shouting like Howard Beale in Network, “I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!,” as long as we know why we’re mad, and what we can do to make change.
Being progressive is about appealing to the human condition, insisting on compassion and emotion. Amy Goodman is convinced that if people saw the atrocities of this war, things would be very different. If we were permitted to see the photographs of children lying dead on the street, of the coffins bringing our dead soldiers home, perhaps this war would not have escalated to its current level.
In order to appeal to others in this way, though, in order to expect others to be open to these images, we must not become so stuck in the minutia of our own ideologies. Having a favorite “horse in the race” for President is expected, and even encouraged, but in a time when so much is at stake, there comes a point when we must call for unity. We must look through the details and uncover the bigger picture. Imagine what the reaction from those who count on us not doing this would be if we actually did it. Let’s blind-side them. We have the tools we need; we just need to act. Let’s listen to each other, and together; we will rise.