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FINGER_TO_FINGER

                                             April 21, 2007

An anti-war protest in
San Francisco, back in      DEMONSTRATION_SATORIS
March of 2003.

A crowd of punks on the
corner were chanting:

   "Corporate Media Lies!
    Corporate Media Lies!"

A guy standing on the corner,
waiting for the light to change:

   "My god.  What do
    you people believe?!"                    What do they believe?

                                                Noam Chomsky,
                                                Z Magazine.
 He didn't just disagree,
 he didn't understand                        That's a
 what they were talking                      quick answer.    (Though I
 about, he couldn't                                           may be
 imagine a news source                                        stereotyping
 that wasn't run as a                                         the punks.)
 business... and not just
 a business, but a *big*                     What I would've like
 business.                                   to have said to this
                                             fellow:
     For so many people
     in the United                       The best English language
     States there's                      newspaper at present is the
     this ingrained                      Guardian UK -- which you can read
     notion that if                      on-line.  It's run by a foundation
     it's *bigger* it                    rather than a corporation.
     has to be
     better... but                       Myself I'm a fan of the
     there's *so* much                   "Democracy Now" show, which
     evidence to the                     you can hear locally on
     contrary at this                    KPFA. Both of these are
     point!                              "listener-sponsored"
                                         organizations that run off
                                         of small donations.
I often have the
feeling that these                       If you insist on a conservative
demonstrations are                       bias, there's the magazine "The
pointless... but this                    Economist", a British
was a moment of                          publication with is much better
genuine contact.                         than any of the American
                                         weeklies.

A spark of communication,                      This is a business, 'tis
a flare of incredulous disgust...              true, but it's a much
and where did it go from there?                smaller business than,
                                               say, the big television
   There really are                            news sources.
   people out there who
   have literally no
   contact with
   opinions from
   outside of their
   tribe.                                As for the Corporate Media,
                                         I think that in order to
   Protestors in the                     tell lies, you need to know
   public streets                        the truth, and that may be
   have at least a                       giving them too much credit.
   chance of talking
   to them.


                           I wonder about this
                           fellow some times...
                           has he started to
                           catch on yet?

                           There's an argument that
                           there's one respect
                           where blatantly
                           totalitarian countries
                           are better off than a
                           place like the United
                           States: everyone knows
                           better than to believe
                           what they're told.


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