Our world appears divided into two increasingly identifiable camps:
a: those who believe that the system works just fine. It’s a little broken currently, but economists and scientists will fix it and everything will sort itself out eventually.
and
b: those who are more than a little freaked out by things like the Gulf of Oil disaster and other environmental devastation (including local facts shared at the water conference this past weekend - a logging corporation owns Nanaimo’s drinking watershed and wouldn't let us in it, and there’s a cemetery, a landfill, three large car wreckers and a pig farm directly atop Parksville’s increasingly polluted water supply), global climate disruption, the wealthy getting ultra-wealthier, and the lack of a democratic process to enact any real significant change.
The first group are represented quite sufficiently by the dominant corporate media. Their polyanna don’t-worry-be-happy lives are served by highly paid liars and manipulators of truth.
The second group are seeking, increasingly, an alternate perspective from journalists and reporters, professional and amateur, who share their same concerns.
Case in point: ten humanitarian aid workers, attempting to deliver medical supplies to the people of Gaza, were murdered by Israeli forces. I’m attempting to be on holidays in Tofino, but a friend is among those aid workers and I’m concerned. Those who depend on the corporate media will not know of the horrific conditions Palestinians suffer, or the blockade that denies them the ability to trade goods or even be recognized as a nation, or the internationally organized flotilla carrying humanitarian aid – only one of many recent attempts to assist a culture suffering a most pernicious form of genocide, silently suffering as those who might affect change refuse to turn their pens and cameras their way. If all you read and watch is the corporate news, you may hear of the ten murdered but you'll know none of the context, and will likely believe Israel’s lies - that these innocent civilians, knowingly risking their lives in an attempt to help an occupied people, were not aid workers but, rather, armed thugs.
Because the corporate media has for so long ignored Gaza, and the many international aid attempts to help the Palestinian people, those who believe these lies will not have followed news of the gathering of international citizens, folks like my friend Kevin Neish who so courageously put themselves in harms way in an effort to help others.
Because the corporate media has such a grip on the hearts and minds of those who want so desperately to believe all is well in the world, these lies will be believed. Israel’s lies will be repeated until they are believed, as they always have been.
And the sons of Abraham, Muslim Ishmael and Jewish Isaac, roll in their graves as their father’s nation continues to listen to the voice in his head advising perpetual sacrifice, and calls it Yahweh.
The alternative media who broke the story, late last night, are among these:
http://rabble.ca/news/2010/05/activist-network-turkish-tv-says-gaza-bound-aid-flotilla-attacked-israeli-forces
http://smpalestine.com/2010/05/31/flotilla-update-immediate-post-attack/
http://www.witnessgaza.com/
http://pacificfreepress.com
http://www.ipadio.com/phlogs/Gaza_TVNews/
