No Questions Asked

I haven’t been this optimistic about the future of our country for a long time. Perhaps our system still does work and Fitzgerald is an honest, hard-driven independent investigator who is serious about learning the truth. His actions remind me of Elliot Ness and the team that took down Chicago’s gangsters.

I look forward to his future investigations.

It is becoming more and more difficult to believe that the New York Times is providing factual information, never mind unbiased information. Executive Editor Bill Keller has publicly defended Judith Miller numerous times — first in her ridiculously alarmist pre-Iraq war stories that were completely false and recently in her role in the Valerie Plame leak.

Both times the leader of the paper publicly stated he did not believe any wrongdoing had been done. Privately, he was more forthcoming with his staff.

In a recent e-mail to his staff he acknowledged that he “missed what should have been significant alarm bells” that the White House had leaked Miller information. Judy seems to have misled (Times Washington bureau chief) Phil Taubman about the extent of her involvement. “This alone should have been enough to make me probe deeper.”

Keller, who called the message to his staff a “lessons learned e-mail”, said he may have decided to cooperate more with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald “if I had known the details of Judy’s entanglement” with I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff.

This sounds awfully familiar. Astute readers will recall that after Miller’s numerous alarmist front-page stories about Iraq’s weapons capabilities were proven false Keller acknowledged:

Editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper.

How can the public trust the Times and its reporters when the executive editor is either extremely gullible or a participant in what some would call criminal behavior? How many more “lessons learned e-mails” does the public have to endure before the paper learns its lesson and starts providing facts?

After reviewing recent articles about the Valerie Plame investigation I have concluded that nobody in the White House is going to be severely punished. In fact it is unlikely any high level official will be punished at all.

For a conviction, the special prosecutor would have to prove that someone “knowingly” revealed Plame’s identity as a secret CIA agent.

Recent stories say that New York Times’ reporter Judith Miller, told Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby never said that Plame was a deep undercover spy. He said she worked for CIA’s Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation, and Arms Control unit, which is incorrect. Special Prosecutor and FBI are now looking elsewhere for the source of the leak.

How convenient for everyone that a few days after Judith Miller is released from prison she presented information that took some of the heat off the Vice President’s office. In her testimony Miller revealed that the Pentagon had given her special security clearance. If that’s true, then Miller was more like a government official — or a government pawn — than a reporter and suspicions about her reports are warranted. She later wrote that she was under the impression that her “special security clearance” did not end when she left her embedded troop in Iraq and that she could not share information she received from administration sources with her editors.

It is all a depressing farce. It is being suggested that Libby didn’t “knowingly” out a spy, but was simply repeating gossip he had heard at a dinner party.

The special prosecutors are now looking for the “original source” of the leak. You can bet this “original” source will not be any high level official.

Journalists are too afraid to ask obvious questions, such as:
There were TWO sources who spoke about Plame to reporters. Who is the second source? Why is Judith Miller the focus of such scrutiny when numerous journalists received information about Plame? Why isn’t Robert Novak, who wrote a column about Plame (and Karl Rove’s good friend) the focus of any attention?

Those with nothing to hide have nothing to lose by asking questions. Why are so many journalists so silent? Could it be that they understand that they have more in common with government officials than the special prosecutor? Perhaps they are they so caught up in the political game that they have lost sight of the story.

Here is the story: The administration has repeatedly used the media to manipulate facts, distort the truth and spread propaganda to the American public. The Valerie Plame story shows how far they will go to punish those who dare to question the official spin and to reveal the truth. It is important to find the people responsible for revealing Plame’s identity as a CIA agent. It is a treasonous act. But it is also important to go beyond simple he said she said reporting and to do some analysis of issues and events.

President Truman once said that if you gave Americans the facts they would do the right thing. For once it would be nice if reporters gave Americans the facts and let them decide what the right thing to do was.

This is interesting, for the first time, the media actually catching up with the Saddam style propaganda that Bush administration is doing. They did it well with the Plastic Turkey, they did it well with the fake help in New Orleans among others, but this time, it seems that things are changing for Bush.

Earlier today, President Bush held an “impromptu” public teleconference with a group of U.S. soldiers based in Tikrit, Iraq.

Pentagon communications aide Allison Barber “insisted the questions were not rehearsed. The military had been told ahead of time only about topics the president might want to talk about, not specific questions. ‘We just knew broad themes,’ Barber said.”
…..
Reporter asks Scott McClellan: “How were they selected, and are their comments to the president pre-screened, any questions or anything…” McClellan responds, “No.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/13/behind-the-scenes-photo-op/

Mr. Bush Goes to Tikrit (Sort of)
Just when you think that President Bush couldn’t out-Saddam Saddam any more, he goes and does something that proves you wrong. If any Iraqis caught the hilarious video conference Thursday between Bush at the White House and troops from the 42nd Infantry Division in Tikrit, it may have seemed like a high-tech version of a familiar scene from the old days when Saddam used to travel to Tikrit to feel (and more importantly to have others feel) his greatness.
The video conference was a display of just how far the propaganda system has come since Bush took over from Saddam. Instead of visiting Tikrit, which the president lightly acknowledged he could not safely do, Bush addressed – via satellite – an adoring bunch of U.S. soldiers who had apparently been given a heavy dose of Kool-Aid before the telecast began. Oh, there was one Iraqi there – Sgt. Maj. Akeel from the 5th Iraqi Army Division, whose role in the affair was limited to smiling like a good Iraqi and saying to Bush, “I like you.”

Under Saddam, Iraqis were bombarded via their TVs with video of the Iraqi leader meeting his generals in Tikrit, overseeing military parades, listening intently to his commanders, examining their weapons, firing a rifle here, swinging a sword there. For Iraqis, Tikrit represented the mother of all locations for the regime’s propaganda commercial shoots. Few were those Iraqis chosen to be in Saddam’s midst for these staged commercials, but at least Saddam actually went there.

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/jscahill.php?articleid=7623

I thought you might like to read these.
Cheers,
/FaaB

This speech is so on-target and so similar to my book that I decided to publish it in its entirety.

This is a long speech, but worth reading and considering. Why do we seem increasingly apathetic and lethargic in our role as citizens?” It is an excellent question. I place a lot of the blame on the mainstream media and its decision not to inform the public. That doesn’t eliminate the responsibility of citizens, but provides an explanation about why we have become so lethargic. We allowed an illegal, immoral war to be launched in the name of freedom. We continue to allow torture to be done to helpless people around the globe. Perhaps if more graphic images and better information was available, more Americans would call for change.

What do you think?

Al Gore on The Threat to American Democracy

“The subjugation of news by entertainment seriously harms our
democracy: it leads to dysfunctional journalism that fails to inform
the people.”

Remarks by Al Gore as prepared
Associated Press / The Media Center

October 5, 2005

I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave
danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our
public discourse . I know that I am not the only one who feels that
something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America’s
fabled “marketplace of ideas” now functions.

How many of you, I wonder, have heard a friend or a family member in
the last few years remark that it’s almost as if America has entered ”
an alternate universe”?

I thought maybe it was an aberration when three-quarters of Americans
said they believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us
on September 11, 2001. But more than four years later, between a third
and a half still believe Saddam was personally responsible for planning
and supporting the attack.

At first I thought the exhaustive, non-stop coverage of the O.J. trial
was just an unfortunate excess that marked an unwelcome departure from
the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. But
now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of
serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at
a time.

Are we still routinely torturing helpless prisoners, and if so, does it
feel right that we as American citizens are not outraged by the
practice? And does it feel right to have no ongoing discussion of
whether or not this abhorrent, medieval behavior is being carried out
in the name of the American people? If the gap between rich and poor is
widening steadily and economic stress is mounting for low-income
families, why do we seem increasingly apathetic and lethargic in our
role as citizens?

On the eve of the nation’s decision to invade Iraq, our longest serving
senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor asked:
“Why is this chamber empty? Why are these halls silent?”

The decision that was then being considered by the Senate with
virtually no meaningful debate turned out to be a fateful one. A few
days ago, the former head of the National Security Agency, Retired Lt.
General William Odom, said, “The invasion of Iraq, I believe, will turn
out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history.”

But whether you agree with his assessment or not, Senator Byrd’s
question is like the others that I have just posed here: he was saying,
in effect, this is strange, isn’t it? Aren’t we supposed to have full
and vigorous debates about questions as important as the choice between
war and peace?

Those of us who have served in the Senate and watched it change over
time, could volunteer an answer to Senator Byrd’s two questions: the
Senate was silent on the eve of war because Senators don’t feel that
what they say on the floor of the Senate really matters that much any
more. And the chamber was empty because the Senators were somewhere
else: they were in fundraisers collecting money from special interests
in order to buy 30-second TVcommercials for their next re-election
campaign.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there was - at least for a short
time - a quality of vividness and clarity of focus in our public
discourse that reminded some Americans - including some journalists -
that vividness and clarity used to be more common in the way we talk
with one another about the problems and choices that we face. But then,
like a passing summer storm, the moment faded.

In fact there was a time when America’s public discourse was
consistently much more vivid, focused and clear. Our Founders, probably
the most literate generation in all of history, used words with
astonishing precision and believed in the Rule of Reason.

Their faith in the viability of Representative Democracy rested on
their trust in the wisdom of a well-informed citizenry. But they placed
particular emphasis on insuring that the public could be well-informed.
And they took great care to protect the openness of the marketplace of
ideas in order to ensure the free-flow of knowledge.

The values that Americans had brought from Europe to the New World had
grown out of the sudden explosion of literacy and knowledge after
Gutenberg’s disruptive invention broke up the stagnant medieval
information monopoly and triggered the Reformation, Humanism, and the
Enlightenment and enshrined a new sovereign: the “Rule of Reason.”

Indeed, the self-governing republic they had the audacity to establish
was later named by the historian Henry Steele Commager as “the Empire
of Reason.”

Our founders knew all about the Roman Forum and the Agora in ancient
Athens. They also understood quite well that in America, our public
forum would be an ongoing conversation about democracy in which
individual citizens would participate not only by speaking directly in
the presence of others — but more commonly by communicating with their
fellow citizens over great distances by means of the printed word. Thus
they not only protected Freedom of Assembly as a basic right, they made
a special point - in the First Amendment - of protecting the freedom of
the printing press.

Their world was dominated by the printed word. Just as the proverbial
fish doesn’t know it lives in water, the United States in its first
half century knew nothing but the world of print: the Bible, Thomas
Paine’s fiery call to revolution, the Declaration of Independence, our
Constitution , our laws, the Congressional Record, newspapers and
books.

Though they feared that a government might try to censor the printing
press - as King George had done - they could not imagine that America’s
public discourse would ever consist mainly of something other than
words in print.

And yet, as we meet here this morning, more than 40 years have passed
since the majority of Americans received their news and information
from the printed word. Newspapers are hemorrhaging readers and, for the
most part, resisting the temptation to inflate their circulation
numbers. Reading itself is in sharp decline, not only in our country
but in most of the world. The Republic of Letters has been invaded and
occupied by television.

Radio, the internet, movies, telephones, and other media all now vie
for our attention - but it is television that still completely
dominates the flow of information in modern America. In fact, according
to an authoritative global study, Americans now watch television an
average of four hours and 28 minutes every day — 90 minutes more than
the world average.

When you assume eight hours of work a day, six to eight hours of sleep
and a couple of hours to bathe, dress, eat and commute, that is almost
three-quarters of all the discretionary time that the average American
has. And for younger Americans, the average is even higher.

The internet is a formidable new medium of communication, but it is
important to note that it still doesn’t hold a candle to television.
Indeed, studies show that the majority of Internet users are actually
simultaneously watching television while they are online. There is an
important reason why television maintains such a hold on its viewers in
a way that the internet does not, but I’ll get to that in a few
minutes.

Television first overtook newsprint to become the dominant source of
information in America in 1963. But for the next two decades, the
television networks mimicked the nation’s leading newspapers by
faithfully following the standards of the journalism profession.
Indeed, men like Edward R. Murrow led the profession in raising the
bar.

But all the while, television’s share of the total audience for news
and information continued to grow — and its lead over newsprint
continued to expand. And then one day, a smart young political
consultant turned to an older elected official and succinctly described
a new reality in America’s public discourse: “If it’s not on
television, it doesn’t exist.”

But some extremely important elements of American Democracy have been
pushed to the sidelines. And the most prominent casualty has been the ”
marketplace of ideas” that was so beloved and so carefully protected by
our Founders. It effectively no longer exists.

It is not that we no longer share ideas with one another about public
matters; of course we do. But the “Public Forum” in which our Founders
searched for general agreement and applied the Rule of Reason has been
grossly distorted and “restructured” beyond all recognition.

And here is my point: it is the destruction of that marketplace of
ideas that accounts for the “strangeness” that now continually haunts
our efforts to reason together about the choices we must make as a
nation.

Whether it is called a Public Forum, or a “Public Sphere” , or a
marketplace of ideas, the reality of open and free public discussion
and debate was considered central to the operation of our democracy in
America’s earliest decades.

In fact, our first self-expression as a nation - “We the People” - made
it clear where the ultimate source of authority lay. It was universally
understood that the ultimate check and balance for American government
was its accountability to the people. And the public forum was the
place where the people held the government accountable. That is why it
was so important that the marketplace of ideas operated independent
from and beyond the authority of government.

The three most important characteristics of this marketplace of ideas
were:

1) It was open to every individual, with no barriers to entry, save the
necessity of literacy. This access, it is crucial to add, applied not
only to the receipt of information but also to the ability to
contribute information directly into the flow of ideas that was
available to all;

2) The fate of ideas contributed by individuals depended, for the most
part, on an emergent Meritocracy of Ideas. Those judged by the market
to be good rose to the top, regardless of the wealth or class of the
individual responsible for them;

3) The accepted rules of discourse presumed that the participants were
all governed by an unspoken duty to search for general agreement. That
is what a “Conversation of Democracy” is all about.

What resulted from this shared democratic enterprise was a startling
new development in human history: for the first time, knowledge
regularly mediated between wealth and power.

The liberating force of this new American reality was thrilling to all
humankind. Thomas Jefferson declared, “I have sworn upon the alter of
God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of
man.”

It ennobled the individual and unleashed the creativity of the human
spirit. It inspired people everywhere to dream of what they could yet
become. And it emboldened Americans to bravely explore the farther
frontiers of freedom - for African Americans, for women, and
eventually, we still dream, for all.

And just as knowledge now mediated between wealth and power,
self-government was understood to be the instrument with which the
people embodied their reasoned judgments into law. The Rule of Reason
under-girded and strengthened the rule of law.

But to an extent seldom appreciated, all of this - including especially
the ability of the American people to exercise the reasoned collective
judgments presumed in our Founders’ design — depended on the
particular characteristics of the marketplace of ideas as it operated
during the Age of Print.

Consider the rules by which our present “public forum” now operates,
and how different they are from the forum our Founders knew. Instead of
the easy and free access

individuals had to participate in the national conversation by means of
the printed word, the world of television makes it virtually impossible
for individuals to take part in what passes for a national conversation
today.

Inexpensive metal printing presses were almost everywhere in America.
They were easily accessible and operated by printers eager to typeset
essays, pamphlets, books or flyers.

Television stations and networks, by contrast, are almost completely
inaccessible to individual citizens and almost always uninterested in
ideas contributed by individual citizens.

Ironically, television programming is actually more accessible to more
people than any source of information has ever been in all of history.
But here is the crucial distinction: it is accessible in only one
direction; there is no true interactivity, and certainly no
conversation.

The number of cables connecting to homes is limited in each community
and usually forms a natural monopoly. The broadcast and satellite
spectrum is likewise a scarce and limited resource controlled by a few.
The production of programming has been centralized and has usually
required a massive capital investment. So for these and other reasons,
an ever-smaller number of large corporations control virtually all of
the television programming in America.

Soon after television established its dominance over print, young
people who realized they were being shut out of the dialogue of
democracy came up with a new form of expression in an effort to join
the national conversation: the “demonstration.” This new form of
expression, which began in the 1960s, was essentially a poor quality
theatrical production designed to capture the attention of the
television cameras long enough to hold up a sign with a few printed
words to convey, however plaintively, a message to the American people.
Even this outlet is now rarely an avenue for expression on national
television.

So, unlike the marketplace of ideas that emerged in the wake of the
printing press, there is virtually no exchange of ideas at all in
television’s domain. My partner Joel Hyatt and I are trying to change
that - at least where Current TV is concerned. Perhaps not
coincidentally, we are the only independently owned news and
information network in all of American television.

It is important to note that the absence of a two-way conversation in
American television also means that there is no “meritocracy of ideas”
on television. To the extent that there is a “marketplace” of any kind
for ideas on television, it is a rigged market, an oligopoly, with
imposing barriers to entry that exclude the average citizen.

The German philosopher, Jurgen Habermas, describes what has happened as
“the refeudalization of the public sphere.” That may sound like
gobbledygook, but it’s a phrase that packs a lot of meaning. The feudal
system which thrived before the printing press democratized knowledge
and made the idea of America thinkable, was a system in which wealth
and power were intimately intertwined, and where knowledge played no
mediating role whatsoever. The great mass of the people were ignorant.
And their powerlessness was born of their ignorance.

It did not come as a surprise that the concentration of control over
this powerful one-way medium carries with it the potential for damaging
the operations of our democracy. As early as the 1920s, when the
predecessor of television, radio, first debuted in the United States,
there was immediate apprehension about its potential impact on
democracy. One early American student of the medium wrote that if
control of radio were concentrated in the hands of a few, “no nation
can be free.”

As a result of these fears, safeguards were enacted in the U.S. –
including the Public Interest Standard, the Equal Time Provision, and
the Fairness Doctrine - though a half century later, in 1987, they were
effectively repealed. And then immediately afterwards, Rush Limbaugh
and other hate-mongers began to fill the airwaves.

And radio is not the only place where big changes have taken place.
Television news has undergone a series of dramatic changes. The movie ”
Network,” which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1976, was presented as a
farce but was actually a prophecy. The journalism profession morphed
into the news business, which became the media industry and is now
completely owned by conglomerates.

The news divisions - which used to be seen as serving a public interest
and were subsidized by the rest of the network - are now seen as profit
centers designed to generate revenue and, more importantly, to advance
the larger agenda of the corporation of which they are a small part.
They have fewer reporters, fewer stories, smaller budgets, less travel,
fewer bureaus, less independent judgment, more vulnerability to
influence by management, and more dependence on government sources and
canned public relations hand-outs. This tragedy is compounded by the
ironic fact that this generation of journalists is the best trained and
most highly skilled in the history of their profession. But they are
usually not allowed to do the job they have been trained to do.

The present executive branch has made it a practice to try and control
and intimidate news organizations: from PBS to CBS to Newsweek. They
placed a former male escort in the White House press pool to pose as a
reporter - and then called upon him to give the president a hand at
crucial moments. They paid actors to make make phony video press
releases and paid cash to some reporters who were willing to take it in
return for positive stories. And every day they unleash squadrons of
digital brownshirts to harass and hector any journalist who is critical
of the President.

For these and other reasons, The US Press was recently found in a
comprehensive international study to be only the 27th freest press in
the world. And that too seems strange to me.

Among the other factors damaging our public discourse in the media, the
imposition by management of entertainment values on the journalism
profession has resulted in scandals, fabricated sources, fictional
events and the tabloidization of mainstream news. As recently stated by
Dan Rather - who was, of course, forced out of his anchor job after
angering the White House - television news has been “dumbed down and
tarted up.”

The coverage of political campaigns focuses on the “horse race” and
little else. And the well-known axiom that guides most local television
news is “if it bleeds, it leads.” (To which some disheartened
journalists add, “If it thinks, it stinks.”)

In fact, one of the few things that Red state and Blue state America
agree on is that they don’t trust the news media anymore.

Clearly, the purpose of television news is no longer to inform the
American people or serve the public interest. It is to “glue eyeballs
to the screen” in order to build ratings and sell advertising. If you
have any doubt, just look at what’s on: The Robert Blake trial. The
Laci Peterson tragedy. The Michael Jackson trial. The Runaway Bride.
The search in Aruba. The latest twist in various celebrity couplings,
and on and on and on.

And more importantly, notice what is not on: the global climate crisis,
the nation’s fiscal catastrophe, the hollowing out of America’s
industrial base, and a long list of other serious public questions that
need to be addressed by the American people.

One morning not long ago, I flipped on one of the news programs in
hopes of seeing information about an important world event that had
happened earlier that day. But the lead story was about a young man who
had been hiccupping for three years. And I must say, it was
interesting; he had trouble getting dates. But what I didn’t see was
news.

This was the point made by Jon Stewart, the brilliant host of “The
Daily Show,” when he visited CNN’s “Crossfire”: there should be a
distinction between news and entertainment.

And it really matters because the subjugation of news by entertainment
seriously harms our democracy: it leads to dysfunctional journalism
that fails to inform the people. And when the people are not informed,
they cannot hold government accountable when it is incompetent,
corrupt, or both.

One of the only avenues left for the expression of public or political
ideas on television is through the purchase of advertising, usually in
30-second chunks. These short commercials are now the principal form of
communication between candidates and voters. As a result, our elected
officials now spend all of their time raising money to purchase these
ads.

That is why the House and Senate campaign committees now search for
candidates who are multi-millionaires and can buy the ads with their
own personal resources. As one consequence, the halls of Congress are
now filling up with the wealthy.

Campaign finance reform, however well it is drafted, often misses the
main point: so long as the only means of engaging in political dialogue
is through purchasing expensive television advertising, money will
continue by one means or another to dominate American politic s. And
ideas will no longer mediate between wealth and power.

And what if an individual citizen, or a group of citizens wants to
enter the public debate by expressing their views on television? Since
they cannot simply join the conversation, some of them have resorted to
raising money in order to buy 30 seconds in which to express their
opinion. But they are not even allowed to do that.

Moveon.org tried to buy ads last year to express opposition to Bush’s
Medicare proposal which was then being debated by Congress. They were
told “issue advocacy” was not permissible. Then, one of the networks
that had refused the Moveon ad began running advertisements by the
White House in favor of the President’s Medicare proposal. So Moveon
complained and the White House ad was temporarily removed. By
temporary, I mean it was removed until the White House complained and
the network immediately put the ad back on, yet still refused to
present the Moveon ad.

The advertising of products, of course, is the real purpose of
television. And it is difficult to overstate the extent to which modern
pervasive electronic advertising has reshaped our society. In the
1950s, John Kenneth Galbraith first described the way in which
advertising has altered the classical relationship by which supply and
demand are balanced over time by the invisible hand of the marketplace.
According to Galbraith, modern advertising campaigns were beginning to
create high levels of demand for products that consumers never knew
they wanted, much less needed.

The same phenomenon Galbraith noticed in the commercial marketplace is
now the dominant fact of life in what used to be America’s marketplace
for ideas. The inherent value or validity of political propositions put
forward by candidates for office is now largely irrelevant compared to
the advertising campaigns that shape the perceptions of voters.

Our democracy has been hallowed out. The opinions of the voters are, in
effect, purchased, just as demand for new products is artificially
created. Decades ago Walter Lippman wrote, “the manufacture of
consent.was supposed to have died out with the appearance of
democracy.but it has not died out. It has, in fact, improved enormously
in technique.under the impact of propaganda, it is no longer plausible
to believe in the original dogma of democracy.”

Like you, I recoil at Lippman’s cynical dismissal of America’s gift to
human history. But in order to reclaim our birthright, we Americans
must resolve to repair the systemic decay of the public forum and
create new ways to engage in a genuine and not manipulative
conversation about our future. Americans in both parties should insist
on the re-establishment of respect for the Rule of Reason. We must, for
example, stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We
must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo studies known to be
false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public’s ability to
discern the truth.

I don’t know all the answers, but along with my partner, Joel Hyatt, I
am trying to work within the medium of television to recreate a
multi-way conversation that includes individuals and operates according
to a meritocracy of ideas. If you would like to know more, we are
having a press conference on Friday morning at the Regency Hotel.

We are learning some fascinating lessons about the way decisions are
made in the television industry, and it may well be that the public
would be well served by some changes in law and policy to stimulate
more diversity of viewpoints and a higher regard for the public
interest. But we are succeeding within the marketplace by reaching out
to individuals and asking them to co-create our network.

The greatest source of hope for reestablishing a vigorous and
accessible marketplace for ideas is the Internet. Indeed, Current TV
relies on video streaming over the Internet as the means by which
individuals send us what we call viewer-created content or VC squared.
We also rely on the Internet for the two-way conversation that we have
every day with our viewers enabling them to participate in the
decisions on programming our network.

I know that many of you attending this conference are also working on
creative ways to use the Internet as a means for bringing more voices
into America’s ongoing conversation. I salute you as kindred spirits
and wish you every success.

I want to close with the two things I’ve learned about the Internet
that are most directly relevant to the conference that you are having
here today.

First, as exciting as the Internet is, it still lacks the single most
powerful characteristic of the television medium; because of its
packet-switching architecture, and its continued reliance on a wide
variety of bandwidth connections (including the so-called “last mile”
to the home), it does not support the real-time mass distribution of
full-motion video.

Make no mistake, full-motion video is what makes television such a
powerful medium. Our brains - like the brains of all vertebrates - are
hard-wired to immediately notice sudden movement in our field of
vision. We not only notice, we are compelled to look. When our
evolutionary predecessors gathered on the African savanna a million
years ago and the leaves next to them moved, the ones who didn’t look
are not our ancestors. The ones who did look passed on to us the
genetic trait that neuroscientists call “the establishing reflex.” And
that is the brain syndrome activated by television continuously -
sometimes as frequently as once per second. That is the reason why the
industry phrase, “glue eyeballs to the screen,” is actually more than a
glib and idle boast. It is also a major part of the reason why
Americans watch the TV screen an average of four and a half hours a
day.

It is true that video streaming is becoming more common over the
Internet, and true as well that cheap storage of streamed video is
making it possible for many young television viewers to engage in what
the industry calls “time shifting” and personalize their television
watching habits. Moreover, as higher bandwidth connections continue to
replace smaller information pipelines, the Internet’s capacity for
carrying television will continue to dramatically improve. But in spite
of these developments, it is television delivered over cable and
satellite that will continue for the remainder of this decade and
probably the next to be the dominant medium of communication in
America’s democracy. And so long as that is the case, I truly believe
that America’s democracy is at grave risk.

The final point I want to make is this: We must ensure that the
Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any
limitation on the ability of individuals to choose the content they
wish regardless of the Internet service provider they use to connect to
the Worldwide Web. We cannot take this future for granted. We must be
prepared to fight for it because some of the same forces of corporate
consolidation and control that have distorted the television
marketplace have an interest in controlling the Internet marketplace as
well. Far too much is at stake to ever allow that to happen.

We must ensure by all means possible that this medium of democracy’s
future develops in the mold of the open and free marketplace of ideas
that our Founders knew was essential to the health and survival of
freedom.

“What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this–this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.” — Barbara Bush

For a brief period after hurricane Katrina hit I was hopeful that the American public had finally become so angry by the Bush administration’s lack of foresight and planning that they would demand change — or at least an explanation.

But for all the grumbling that occurred there has been little follow-up by the public or journalists. The president took responsibility for some of the bureaucratic problems, but did not explain what went wrong and why. He dodged questions about whether the U.S. was prepared for another terrorist attack in the country and was not pressed for an answer. He said Katrina victims would be taken care of, but did not provide specifics and wasn’t forced to provide a plan.

Journalists who were purportedly furious after visiting New Orleans have moved on without reflection. The victims were dispersed to cities around the country and have disappeared from our lives. Barbara Bush said they’re doing better than ever.

But what really happened to them? Are they thriving or are they on the brink of homelessness? Have most of them settled into homes? Are their children enrolled in school?

The Washington Post is one of the few papers that ran a story about the fate of the hurricane victims. They found that government housing promises have fallen short — hundreds of thousands remain in hotel rooms and homeless shelters across the country. In the weeks since the hurricane many of the shelters set up to help victims have closed. And the Red Cross is stopping its hotel stipends in two weeks.

Housing options promised by the federal government a month ago have largely failed to materialize. Cruise ships and trailer parks have so far proved in large part to be unworkable, while an American Red Cross program — paid for by the federal government — that allows storm victims to stay in motels or hotels is scheduled to expire Oct. 15. It is projected to cost the Federal Emergency Management Agency as much as $168 million.

Federal officials are struggling to launch an alternative interim housing program that would give families whose homes are destroyed or uninhabitable a lump sum of $2,358 in rental assistance, or $786 a month for three months, with the possibility of a 15-month extension. So far, 330,000 families have signed up for the housing assistance. But if evacuees have to use those stipends to pay for hotel rooms when FEMA stops covering such lodging, the funds will not last long.

Last week, the number of evacuees in hotels increased from 220,000 to more than 400,000 people, in 140,000 rooms. Many have no idea what they will do when the program ends in two weeks.

Ronnie Ashworth, a truck driver from Chalmette, La., east of New Orleans, currently lives at the Baton Rouge Marriott. If no other housing is forthcoming after Oct. 15, “I’ll be sleeping in the back of my truck,” Ashworth, 60, said. “I have no funds right now.”

According to the article, more than 100,000 people remain in about 1,000 shelters operated by the Red Cross, smaller charities and churches, scattered across two dozen states as far-flung as New York and Washington.

The Red Cross has said it will keep its shelters open for as long as necessary, but many are in churches and public buildings that are needed for their primary functions. Hundreds of shelters have closed over the past two weeks, and many of their occupants, the Red Cross said, appear to be moving into hotels, in hopes of benefiting from the hotel program in its final days.

What happened to the money that was collected during the record-breaking philanthropy efforts of Americans?

An organized effort could have helped families to get out of hotels and into proper housing.

Perhaps the American public does not have enough information to understand the depth of the injustice suffered by the victims of Hurricane Katrina or the horrendous waste of taxpayer dollars.

For comparison purposes, let’s look at the assistance Israeli settlers received when they exited the Gaza strip. I don’t want to get into the emotional issue of ownership, but to focus on the financial support the people who left received, much of it from the U.S. government.

The Israeli families who left were provided with free transportation, new housing within the state of Israel and between $200,000 and $750,000 each to move. The compensation would be for their homes and businesses, but also include additional funds for new housing allowances, business and household relocation, or other expenses. The total cost of the move is about $1.74 billion.

According to the daily newspaper Ha’aretz, U.S. aid “was slated to offset the cost of implementing the disengagement plan.” Israel asked for and received more than $2 billion, including the U.S. aid package for the withdrawal.

What did the victims of Hurricane Katrina receive? Most were given a bottle of water, a few meals and a one-way ticket to a random destination. Some received additional benefits when they landed, such as $100 certificates to purchase clothing at local department stores. Others received some financial assistance or hotel vouchers. Many who fled New Orleans lost everything and had nothing more than the clothes on their backs.

The administration originally promised debit cards worth $2,000 for each family displaced by the hurricane. It isn’t a large amount of money to start a life over again, but is enough to survive for a few weeks. Used wisely it could be enough to secure an apartment for a family. FEMA director Brown introduced the program, calling it “a great way to … empower these hurricane survivors to really start rebuilding their lives.”

A few days later FEMA spokesman David Passey announced that the agency had decided against such “empowerment.” Instead of issuing the debit cards to all registered evacuees, only those who were sent to Houston’s Astrodome would receive them. Evacuees sent elsewhere would receive compensation by mail or direct deposit into their accounts. For this to work the hurricane victims need information they probably lost in the storm and access a computer. They also need a permanent address where tthey can receive the check. It would then take 10 days to arrive.http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,16543274-23109,00.html

Americans are generous people and thousands made donations to help hurricane Katrina survivors. A fund set up by former Presidents Bush and Clinton raised more than $1 million in online donations during its first 24 hours. According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy contributions to victims totaled at least $404 million the day after the storm hit, “a pace that is unprecedented in recent American history.”

What happened to all the money? It is time to hold someone accountable for the immeasurable waste of American taxpayers’ dollars. In Iraq millions have gone missing. It seems some of the Katrina victims’ money has evaporated as well.

The Washington Post should be commended for its story about the problems still faced by hurricane victims. More stories should follow: What happened to the money collected for the victims? Who profited by this tragedy? Why weren’t more people put into more permanent housing faster? Will these hurricane victims become part of the homeless statistics?

The Israeli governmentl provided hundreds of thousands of dollars and housing to their citizens. The U.S. government couldn’t provide a few months deposit for an apartment and a stipend for food and clothing.

Once again the administration simply placed a Band-Aid on a festering wound and hoped it would be forgotten. And once again, it was.