Dave Lindorff: Let's Not Lecture the Chinese About Censorship

[marmar]

Published on Tuesday, November 17, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Let's Not Lecture Chinese About Censorship
by Dave Lindorff


President Obama, in his visit to China, held a "town meeting" with Chinese students in which he praised openness and lectured them on the value of freedom of information, saying that he is a "supporter of non-censorship" and that open access to information was a "source of strength."

And yet America is hardly free of censorship. Heck, the president himself has gone to court to prevent the release of photographs of US troops torturing captives in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo. Talk about censorship! But it goes way beyond just such crude, totalitarian style control over information.

Let's just take the issue of depleted uranium weapons, over 1000 tons of which have been expended in the US invasion of Iraq, most of it in populated areas where millions remain exposed to the radioactive dust of the burned material. There is almost no reporting on this topic in the US media. The Pentagon has for years lied about and hidden the effects of this deadly substance, used in shells, bombs and bullets because of its unique ability to penetrate hard steel armor and concrete bunker walls. It has refused to disclose where the weapons were fired, and has denied US troops the tests that would show if they have been contaminated. It has even resorted to having paid Pentagon hacks surreptitiously libel, slander and otherwise undermine those military sources and journalists who have tried to expose this scourge (this reporter has been the target of such disinformation attacks).

But censorship in the US goes beyond these crude efforts at government-directed control of information. In America, some of the most potent censorship is done by the privately owned media-supposedly a bastion of freedom of expression. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/17-9

[dgibby]

1. Excellent article.

Thanks for posting.

[pleah]

2. K&R

[depakid]

3. It is indeed impressive to watch the finger pointing

considering that America has become a culture of lies largely through its so called "free" press.

This is a country where newsreaders and pundits routinely look people in the eyes and lie to them- make demonstrably false statements of fact (or allow false statements of facts to be repeated over and over, with nary a challenge or correction).

Once, during the 2004 campaign a friend (who used to watch CNN) and I took an hour during Blitzer's and Andrea Mitchell's shows and counted up statements of fact that we thought might be false- then verified 16 separate instances, using credible sources, of outright lies- which were either stated directly by the host or passed along by a guest with a welcoming nod.

This is a country where political opinions expressed on talk radio approach the level of uniformity in most communities that would normally be achieved only in a totalitarian society. The immense volume of unanswered right wing opinion- along with its daily repetition of false statements of fact, personal attacks and denunciations has to be heard to be believed by people from other western nations- because they have no concept of such a thing.

Newspapers- which in American tradition have never been bastions of honesty and virtue, typically parrot whatever the source says- with little or no objective analysis. They elevate even the most absurd sorts of quackery to the prominence of scientific fact- leaving the reader justified in believing, for example, that there's a scientific controversy over anthropogenic global warming.

And citizens clued in. They now feel psychologically and constitutionally entitled to base their opinions on outright falsehoods to the extent that it's no longer feasible to engage in public or private discourse on the issues. Americans cannot and often willfully refuse to agree on what provable facts ares! They simply traffic in lies. Saddam was behind 9-11! There are death panels in the health care bill. Knowing this, entities in the corporate media no longer worry about antiquated notions of credibility, which used to be their stock in trade...

Except of course, on the sports page- where, like the Chinese, Americans are still capable of fact based discussions over players and teams or the game- and (are sometimes at least) able to present and exchange informed opinions on the matter.