"How about continuing to cover it while it can still do some good..."
Harry, I think you know that that's not how the commercial newsmedia works. See, we promised Proctor & Gamble, General Motors, and Pfizer that we would deliver to them 14-million eyeballs. Now if the American public, (whose attention span is only as long as a Viagra ad) gets bored, they will tune out and we won't be able to deliver those eyeballs. Unfortunately the owners of those eyeballs are more interested in the plight of Britney Spears than they are in the lives of millions of people living in an Asian country they've never heard of. So due to circumstances beyond our control, we will be covering celebrity gossip and fluff, and not what is happening in Myanmar. Our apologies to the people of Myanmar, we simply no longer find your suffering sufficiently interesting.
If a Tree Falls in Burma, And the US Media Don't Cover It
The story in Burma just gets worse. The "warehouse", in which more than a thousand have been kept since their arrest, sounds like someplace even worse than Gitmo. And then there's the story of the Army major who deserted rather than stay to shoot monks, lest he burn in hell forever. American media, to the extent they ever cared about the Burma story, have moved on.
We allow ourselves to be roused to warlike ire by such stories when the government sees fit, even when those stories are untrue. But here, when the reporting on Burma seems against all odds to truthfully reflect the awful situation there, it's hard for us to be roused even to a simulation of moderate interest...
UPDATE: "We'll continue to cover this story, no matter how long it takes.." That was Anderson Cooper Tuesday night, wrapping up a CNN segment in which "exclusive" video of the demonstrations (and the military response) in Burma was aired for the first time--on CNN. Tuesday night--more than a week after the demonstrations occurred, and almost four full days since Al Jazeera English and BBC World aired if not the same almost virtually identical footage. How about continuing to cover it while it can still do some good--i.e., while demonstrators are still putting their lives on the line in the hope of some support from the West?
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Maybe the phrase is "unmitigated disaster fatigue." As Dem presidential front runners keep the emphasis on the sins of the Iraqis; at a deeper level Americans understand they have lost the moral authority to do much of anything. What are we supposed to do, send over Blackwater?
Exactly. We have grown so weary of watching people suffer on TV. How much are we expected to endure?
Yes fatigue and the feeling of being overwhelmed are common these days.
But in this case the US really does hold the key to stopping these crimes in Myanmar.
While China and Russia (don't forget France) do business in Myanmar, the real money which keeps the regime in power comes through Chevron.
Read about it.....
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100307S.shtml
This is also a big part of the reason why US media does not give the Myanmar story much coverage.....sooner or later they might have to say the word "Chevron" and they are too afraid to do this.
But for the rest of us, we have power over Chevron, don't we?
Have a Chevron gas card? Cancel it and tell them why.
Own Chevron stock? Sell it and tell them why.
Have Chevron as a component in one of your mutual funds? Tell your banker/adviser to put your money somewhere else...and why.
Not a rich stockholder? Just a poor hippie?
Go to a Chevron station and hold a sign for an hour or hand out flyer's with info and links to the Chevron connection.
Inform all of your friends/family/co-workers about the Chevron connection and ask them to boycott.
One monk made no difference in Myanmar, but thousands got the attention of the world. One of us boycotting Chevron will change nothing...but let us all try to inspire/inform the people in our lives to make a difference.
Peace.
Well its not quite Rwanda but like Rwanda in that the West does not care.
Personally I find it confusing how Americans choose what to be compassionate about while ignoring the plight of other Americans right here at home.I agree that this is an atrocity but certainly no worse than what Americans have been doing to Iraquis the last 4 years. Sudan, Burma can be used by AMericans to claim a moral superiority when none exists. Through their own agression the American govt. has caused enough grief and strife to millions of people and continues to do so.
Isn't the Burma story buried for the same reason Mattel apologized to China over the toy recall? The same reason Mia Farrow and Nicholas Kristof are passionate about Darfur but NBC News is not? One mustn't confront the world's last great superpower - China. It's bad for bidniss. And with NBC's Beijing Olympics is just around the corner, don't hold your breath waiting for Burma to lead the news.
CNN is beneath contempt. Shame on anyone who still watches CNN expecting news.
I wish the US had a REAL 24 hour news channel. I would think such a thing would not be so hard to sell.
if a tree falls across an Oil or Gas Pipeline you will hear it.
Really? When Pres. Clinton and Sec. Richardson, passed the $multi-billon Plan Colombia program " read: protect Oxy pipelines (under constant attack) -- and military equipment started flowing, how much did you hear? Clinton waived the human rights conditions attached to the bill (Sen. Leahy) in order to spend the $'s - what did you hear?
The Clinton administration was involved with the planning to build the pipeline across Afghanistan, what did you hear?
When Sec. Richardson came saying that Kosovo (with the lies of genocide by the Clinton admin. promoting the war) was about energy independence for the US (Caspian).
Personally, compared to coverage of horrific world events of the 90's, I was pleasantly surprised at the attention in the media in Burma - More would be good. But, folks are talking about it.
Almost every time, in recent years, someone has brought up Darfur, in turn I asked them what we should have done in the DR Congo (1998- forward - 4 1/2 million dead -- largest loss of life from any single conflict since WWII). Now I admit, most of these folks are just your typical well educated, well read, older leftists and activists types (one is singing at a peace rally today) -- and so far, I have not ran into a single person, who is familiar with the civil war, genocide, starvation, disease from, and refugee status in the DR Congo.
James Traub of the NY Times went so for as to write that it did not occur. Neither did Sierra Leone, or Afghanistan, etc. (thanks Chuck for Blood Diamond).
Why? The media wanted us to believe that when Bill Clinton said "Never Again," it would be so. James Traub re-writes history for us:
"From 1997 through 2000, the world was largely at peace, none of the horrific civil wars in the Third World rose to genocidal proportions, and the White House was occupied by an internationalist Democrat. Then, in rapid succession, a unilaterally-minded Republican took office, 9/11 shattered the interval of peace.."
Whast did you hear when the CIA installed the SHAQ OF IRAN and his death squads in Iran or the 20 other DEMOCRATIC GOVERNEMTS the CIA OVERTHEW.
NOW WE ARE SPREADING DEMOCRACY?
WHY TO OVERTHROW THEM AGAIN?
Teddy Roosevelt's grandson, Kermit, designed and was in charge of the operation that overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran and installed the dictatorship of the Shah in 1953, during the 2nd year of Eisenhower's first administration and the final year of the Korean war.
Incidentally the NSA was quietly opened and chartered on Eisenhower's inauguration day the year before, 1952.
Given the Iranian coup's success at such low costs , the CIA carried on to Guatemala and successfully bombed Guatemala City to the grownd and overthrew the duly elected democracy of Jacobo Arbenz, in the following year, 1954, and installed the brutal dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the beginning of the professional death squads.
We were busy Grand Imperialists back then, eh?
And most of it in secret.
We were not supposed to hear secrets.
That was then.
This is now.
I don't know what that has to do with my comment - but being 55 - I probably don't remember much - and there was propably not a lot of shocking news coverage then, But I know all about it now.
But news coverage - other than the ones I mentioned above? Much like there was not, when the CIA under JKF helped the Baath party to power in Iraq (hated them commies), or when Carter helped Saddam become President (dic) of Iraq. Or when Carter nodded to Saddam that the invasio(Iraqi) of Iran would be met favoribly by the US (hostgage crisis was ongoing). Or when Clinton ordered the CIA to create the policy of Extroadinary rendition (flying suspected terroists to Egypt, so that they could be tortured). Or The US Dept of Justice convicition of James Raidy, Clinton's old buddy from Ark., who spent so much time in the WH, over his illegal campaign financing - fined a record whopping $8.6 million - most news folks don't even know of it. Or when Dem Sen. Carl Levin (on the intelligence committee) said on TV in Nov. 2005 - that there was ablsolutely no doubt that Saddam had a nuclear bomb - everyone knows that. Or when we found out (complements of the Hague) that Clinton had lied about the masive genocide in Kosovo (said 150-200,000) - ended up being less than 5-6,000 (bad enough). Never got the wanted resolution from the UN that he wanted, did he. Gen. Wes Clark - now how much news did you see when he got fired by the Clinton admin, from his job as Supreme Commander of NATO? When Carter and Mandela condemned our Kosovo bombing - remember them being invited on all the news shows (wasn't even reported).
"How about continuing to cover it while it can still do some good. . ."
Beg pardon, but what "good" would you recommend? An invasion, perhaps?
Color me cynical and perhaps more than a little fatigued by it all but I'm serious. Other than the usual sound and fury at the UN and all the talk of envoys and sanctions, signifying nothing, what can really be done? We can make ourselves feel noble by standing up on soap boxes, railing against the junta all we want but the world is ultimately powerless.
About the only thing that will change the situation is a few hundred thousand PRC troops massing along the border, ready to invade, and you know how well that would go down.
This will probably have to burn itself out in the standard manner.
NO!!!!!!!!!
I WILL NOT ALLOW THIS FLAME TO DIE!!! NO!!!
FUCK THIS BRUTAL APATHY!!!
JESUS CHRIST HAD BETTER PRESS THAN THIS!!!!!
We have posted links to bloggers.
We have posted links to breaking news.
We have posted links to companies invested in that murderous band of devils perpetrating this crime against humanity.
We have posted links to list of corporations invested in the Olympics.
To date, there is more information on this affront to human dignity and self determination--as well as solutions for effective responses--posted Here
on Harry Shearer's many Posts than in any one place else on the internet.
I've checked.
Here's the information. You are in the perfect, karma elevated place known to those suffering Buddhists of Burma as precious human rebirth--born into a country where we have free speech and press,
where we have freedom to practice any religion and where we invented the greatest tool for confronting and countering tyranny since the the printed word: the Internet.
So please drop the apocryphal postulates of "invasion" soap-box agrandizement and reinforcement of staus que powerlessness.
Rise up and face this crime or bend over and assume the position of the Bosses.
Write and call your members of Congress, as have I.
Start going over and respond to these links and lists, as have I.
You ask that I "color you cynical"???
What color would that be?
What is the color of this cynicism?
What is the color of spilled blood?
http://mizzima.com/Foto-2007/Sep/27foto/japanbig.html
What is the color of a child's brain lying in the gutter.
http://www.zinmedia.net/2007/09/brain-of-child-who-was-killed-by-army.html
The color of Freedom?
http://mizzima.com/Foto-2007/Sep/yangon-todaylai.html
The world IS NOT ultimately powerless unless we continue to say it is.
To be or not?
Are We The People nor Not?
BTW His Holiness the Dali Lama is on tour across the country this month.
http://www.dalailama.com/page.60.htm
One peace at a time,
from the back hand path.
I stand corrected (and with both feet in mouth that can get pretty silly:) for placing Harry's blog as the most links to Burma News.
Now, thanks to James Boyce, we also now have:
http://www.burma.newsladder.net/
"Write and call your members of Congress, as have I."
Oh, sure. The leaders of Burma will tremble, turn tail, and run at the thought of a (*gasp*) Congressional investigation.
Congressional Representatives and Senators care about only two things: aggrandizing personal power and getting reelected so they can stick their noses deeper into the trough. My former representative, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, is a sterling example of the cynical crassness of the breed. DiFi and B-1 Barbara? Don't make me laugh. Both of them are so deep into the pockets of the "defense" industry that they're sucking lint.
Do you think they give a rip about a bunch of dead Burmese?
To heck with it. It's game over. Sea level is rising. The ozone layer continues to deteriorate. If India and Pakistan ever come to nuclear blows (a probability of virtual unity within the next century), a billion people will die of starvation.
Go ahead. Push string uphill.
I'm tired. I'm old. And in a short while it's not going to matter at all.
Sorry man. I'd rather slam my tongue in a car door than say that creepy, bought-punk-representative's name in public.
No wonder you're so jaded. Judas Priest! Bless your heart.
Guys like him just about had me off the cliff too.
I apologize for coming on so hard and hope that you can forgive my bastard edge.
Please take heart and have faith as We're here, noble mon. We will make it. I never thought I'd say that or feel that way after finally escaping flooded, Kafkatrina New Orleans..but then I found Harry's blog. No shit.
It has kept me out of McDonald's with a rifle.
I can now make it through a check out lines again without wanting to scream, "Are you people fucking clueless?!? Can't you all see what is coming down?!?"
This time it ain't like the 60s, which almost changed everything, but better really.
Given the emergence of the evil fakirs we face these days, I'd say we have a chance and that there are even more of us than them now...and this time we have The Net.(if we can keep it)
Go check out the Burma News Ladder:
http://www.burma.newsladder.net/
Or this cool book:
http://www.amazon.com/Journey-Without-Goal-Tantric-Wisdom/dp/1570627576/ref=pd_sim_b_shvl_img_5/104-6707486-3135924
And/or:
http://www.amazon.com/Stallion-Frozen-Lake-Songs-Sixth/dp/0961891653
You deserve to feel better about the future not worse. It is not you. The world really is about to pop.
Remember Rock'N'Roll.
Put on some George Carlin.
Watch another Harry video.
That's some of what I must do to stay sane...
At least you obviously don't back down.
The only reason that Burma is on the map at all is because of the celebrity factor of Daw Aung San Suu Chi.
I am a blogger about Thai politics.
Thailand has been under a military dictatorship for the last year. I bet nobody on this blog knew about it or even cared. There is a civil war going on in the South of Thailand between Buddhists and Muslims(with Kosova like implication), which can widen into a regional war. Further, Thailand, not China, is Burma's largest trading partner. The Thai military and business class has a deep economic partnership with the Burmese junta.
So the US media has ignored Burma, it has ignored Thailand, it has ignored Laos(oppressive Communist dictatorship) and Cambodia(one party kleptocracy with huge oil reserves). It has ignored India's influence on Burma also. The Burma problem is not exactly a Chinese problem. There are regional and non-regional (Russia) actors propping up the Burmese junta. The British,French, Japanese and Singaporeans also have invested large amounts of money in Burma, but nobody dares to notice their imperialistic ways, because they ain't American.
There is an entire world outside of Iraq, Iran and Israel that the US media, including the Huffington Post, routinely ignores.
Burma is a fascinating country with an ancient civilization. It is too bad that it doesn't get the coverage that it deserves.
Chevron has oil production contracts with the dictators of Burma/Myanmar. Chevron's contracts pay the illegitimate dictatorhip $600 MILLION a year. The Cheney Bush Corporation owns thousands of shares of Chevron stock. American foreign policy stands not for democracy...it stands for greed and the Almighty...Dollar.
Curious gilbaker (and I don't argue with your case) - Do you see any real difference here, than with the Clinton admin., or perhaps the next Democrat administration. See my larger post for my view. Clinton and Enron (contracts around the world). UnoCal - Afghanistan in the 90's. Kosovo and the Caspian Sea energy resources. Clinton and Nigeria. One of Hillary's advisors works for Blackwater. Sen. Feinstein and Boxer (CA) are deep into special interest in Coporate America - all which would piss off the left, if they really knew about it. Bill Clinton pissing off Europe by pushing Genitically modified foods on the world during the 90's - Monsoto.
Is there really a difference?
Fight for your cause - stop blaming only one side. If you want all of this changed - hold the Democrats accoutable, first. Putting them back in, and believing that you have solved a problem - will only make it worse, as nobody will be watching, again.
Please. Where do you get this stuff? China has 1.4 billion people. What is "fairly large" out of that number. You're luck if there one million there who would call themselves
Christian, and what they take that to mean will be nothing you'd recognize, I assure you.
Matteo Ricci spent more than 50 years in China trying to harvest Catholic converts. His total harvest: 0. Believe me, it's no different today. Only when Christianity is allowed to be turned into a business, as it is in the West, will you begin to see "Christians" in any number in China.
You are absolutely right about bringing the story to the forefront. But alas, mention Myanmar to the average American teenager and he'll think you're talking about the marshmellow chocolate cookies we can only buy in the cooler months. Also,Burma is easier to spell than Myanmar. But even if the story receives more media play, what could we as Americans do? Invade the country? We did that to Afghanistan, Iraq, now they're even flirting with the idea of going into Iran, and where did that get us? Then again, everything depends on how much oil Burma has. Oh, and they've got still another non-Western religion that we don't know about.
(I know you know that I'm being sarcastic. But many of us lack the irony gene.)
We as the US can do a lot to pressure China and India. We can begin my pulling out of the Summer Olympics unless China does something. We can put pressure on the UN for more active intervention. Most of all right now we can keep talking about it. I am shocked and disturbed at the little coverage by the media.
What is different in Burma, afer all the overthrown Governments where the C I A has put dictators in office I don't see much different.
Only thing that would be different is if the C I A wasn't envoluved here.
Most Americans forgot overnight about New Orleans. How can they be expected to care about Myanmar?
We've become a shallow, shortsighted, self involved people. TV is our alter, reducing a three-dimensional world to two dimensions for one-dimensional man.
This Burma media coverage began after Bush gave his speech in UN. Was this a political tactic to move attentions away from the tensions that are built between US and Iran? Is this administration trying to put a humaniterian face to their war mongering agendas while they are being criticized by almost very country in the world for wthat they have done to Iraq and what they are planning to do in Iran?
HARRY RESPONDS: The international (BBC, AJE) coverage was not prompted by Bush's speech, it was prompted by the upsurge in demonstrations in a country that had been cowed by its junta since 1988. Bush's speech reference was a hasty response to that development.
Mr. Shearer,
Since when the US administration is cocerned with the human rights violation anywhere in the world? They play these events as they fit their agendas. US has a history of oppressing popular movements throughout the world. The question is why they are suddenly concerned with current events in Burma?
So you've found another country that America should be concerned with, huh? Anything but Iraq I guess.
HARRY RESPONDS: Yeah, that's right, it's a zero-sum game, can't chew gum and walk at the same time. Sorry about that.
You can walk and chew gum at the same time, but you can't chew gum and eat potato chips at the same time.
Mr. Shearer, you know there are limits to the number of things people can be vested in. Are you making the case for being roused by an issue over which you have no control and for which you have no plans to act? What exactly do you think people should be doing about Burma? People with time on their hands have plenty of ways to find out what is going on in Burma and they can organize all the protests, email campaigns, etc. that they want.
What should American politicians be doing that they aren't doing about Burma? Should we be putting additional pressure on China, with whom we are closely entangled economically? Should Americans be making voting decisions based on their politicial records on Burma (as opposed to, say, their records on global warming, healthcare, Iraq).
We are in no position to cut economic ties with China, and Burma will not make a difference in the lives of most Americans. Americans can "care" about Burma, all we want, but in the end it will hardly be different than Bush's caring about the working people of this country.
Debbie, I don't have "a lot of time on my hands". I quit watching prime-time television.
I'm really not concerned here with "other people" but with you and me and Harry and everyone else interested in paying attention and getting the word out...the good, the bad and the ugly.
Yes I think Americans should be making voting decisions. That would be a nice start.
We must hold our elected officials accountable not just to our wishes but to common human decency, the elimination of totalitarian oppression and torture in any form wherever it exists whether in Washington D.C. or Mandalay, Burma.
It is a myth of neo'concervative Republican non-politics that one vote has to be opposed to another, when the basis of our system of government is built on working compromise.
I refuse to assume that position or perpetuate that lie with cynical apathy.
There is no better position from which to raise Hell than now.
We are in a perfect position to effect an Olympic boycott, network support both here and around the world, increase information flow by using it right in the comfort of your own home.
We can grasp only what we can reach.
We can hold only what we can handle.
What we can handle is, at least for now, as close as your finger tips.
Yeah - that's about it. Have you noticed how Darfur faded from the headlines completely after Israel kicked refugees from Darfur out? Another distraction turned embarrassment, I guess.
For those students of the Budhist beliefs, I have a question. For the billions of years in which the earth formed and cooled and life began to take root in the forms of single-cell organisms, plants, reptiles and so on...where were the souls that would eventually be put on the path for enlightenment? Were we watching the dinosaurs fall from afar, biding our time before achieving corporial consciousness? Are the number of souls finite? And what happens when our reign is over? When the earth shrugs off this virus known as man? Is that only supposed to happen when everyone has reached Nirvanna, or at that point will the philosophy be "come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be?" (Sorry, couldn't resist the little Cobain riff)
My point, as it has been since Bush announced the American "outrage" over the incidents in Burma (to which most Americans replied "huh?"), is that life on this planet is a tapestry of pain and turmoil, much of it we have a direct hand in. Should we not put our house in order before seeking another position as the democratic freedom police? If they're truly Budhist, does not their suffering fulfill a kind of purpose in their advancement? Sounds cold, but who are we to cry out to the world that evil is taking place over there, while we have evil seeping out from the halls of our government right here? Who are we to decry the deaths of hundreds or thousands, while we're directly responsible for the death and dislocation of hundreds of thousands into the millions?
We want to show how advanced we are, while contemplating yet another military action that is SURE to lead to more disaster. Where are our priorities?
Oh, wait, I just remembered I've got HEROES TiVo'd from the other night. Gotta go.
Why did my father risk his life (and hence mine) by fighting the Nazis? Or why did my uncle spend nearly a year as a prisoner of the Japanese?
You may or may not survive what you to see in this "tapestry of pain and turmoil", but it is what you refuse to see that will kill you every time.
Your which came first soul searching is old time circular BS. If you want to know about Buddhism why don't you ask one that you know or, failing that piece of virtuous karma, just look it up and read it for yourself. Such info is published in at least a bazillion languages. They even have children's books.
Otherwise quit jacking around here, trying to get your kicks by kicking around people that you have decided to know nothing about, while those innocent people are really slaughtered in this real world.
The first Noble Truth is the reality of suffering. Pain is real, for each of us. It is not something that just happens to someone else. Pain is not an intellectual concept but visceral, something you have to own and from which you must take responsibility for your own liberation.
Compassion allows us to help ourselves through helping each other in pain and the liberation from it because pain is the ONE thing that we all know.
Try here: http://www.dalailama.com/
I don't know if Harry is neccisarily advocating for military intervention. If people, and I'm not talking about the intellectually and moral cavities that are our elected officials, actually gave two shits to spend an hour of their day finding out about what's going on in Burma, SOMETHING could be done. The prerequisite for action is knowlege. Unfortunately, Americans for the most part are stuck in the dark.
Posted October 2, 2007 | 08:07 PM (EST)