NON NORTH AMERICAN NEWS CHANNEL? (A RANT)

Hey, cool--there's going to be a new 24 hour news channel in Central and South America called Telesur. However, that's not what I am writing this post about. I'm writing this post about a Chicago Tribune writer who is indicative of what's totally and completely wrong with America today.

First off, thanks be to Christian Christensen for writing about this [http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0718-24.htm|in an article] at CommonDreams.Org. I'd have never heard about it if it weren't for that article. However, I think Christensen doesn't go far enough. He makes some good points about the ChicagoTribune.com article by Gary Marx. He talks about how even the headline of [http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0507170302jul17,1,540341.story?ctrack=1&cset=true|the article] ("Will truth go south on Telesur news?") assumes the likelihood of a leftist bias.

Marx points out that the network is primarily backed by Hugo Chavez who is known for his anti-American sentiments. Well, I want to know why America isn't known for its anti-everybody else sentiment. In my opinion I think it's worrisome that Marx even felt the need to be concerned by a possible lack of objectivity in a foreign news service.

1) There is a lot of criticism toward America coming from a great number of foreign journalistic sources. America doesn't care, it just keeps on doing whatever it wants.

2) Anyone who is quick to judge the failings of others should really be confident in their own abilities to weather their own criticisms.

In other words, like Jesus is reported to have said: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, bitch!"

OK, I think I parahprased a bit there, but you get the point.

"So, the brownies south of the border want their own news channel? Isn't that adorable? Who's backing them? Murdoch? Viacom? Venezuela?"

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention Cuba's also involved.

"CUBA?? WTF?? THEY CAN'T BE UNBIASED!! THEY'RE COMMIES!"

Right, well, Gary, you're a capitalist, who, based on the basic rules of capitalism, will do anything for money since that's what you need to eat, sleep in a place you call home, fuel the car you drive to work in, and pretty much survive. Hell, in America you need money to go to the doctor. Not so in Cuba. In fact, it's my understanding that capitalist America is the only country in the world that makes it's citizens pay for all of their own medical care.

So, who's the biased one, Marx? You might trying reading a thing or two by your great uncle Karl before you assume that capitalism is great. This is my ultimate point with this post. We're too scared to face the possibility that the great and mighty America could be screwing things up in the world.

We're supposed to be the world police force, but we allow groups like the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO to make decisions for governments essentially blackmailing them into things they may not want to do in order to financially survive in the world.

We're supposed to be the only superpower left--it's our responsibility to treat our planet and everyone on it with respect. Think of us as Superman. With all that power he's got, it's great that he's a moral, upstanding guy.

But what if he wasn't raised with those values? What if Clark Kent was raised like Lex Luthor? What if Clark Kent was a Trumpian business man who was only interested in using his powers to make money and help his friends make money?

Would we feel as good about Superman then?

This is what we've got on our hands. We live in a country where everyone from the government, to the press, to private industry are all only interested in making money and many have been documented to do anything to do it. I've read things about oil companies sponsoring rebellions against governments in Africa. I've read about an American soda company that apparently financially helped a government commit acts of terrorism on their citizens.

A group of concerned citizens and lawers tried to get Unocal's corporate charter revoked by the state of California because of their business practices but did California do it? Nope. (This was before Arnold was in office, too, so you can't blame him!)

We've got to start taking a hard look at what our leaders (corporate, media and political, as well) are doing to us and the world. We're being fed a bill of goods that does not include everything in the box. We need to stop assuming we're the gold standard to be judged by because we are not. We have the power to rule the world, but that's it--we lack the wisdom.

How do we get the wisdom? Simple. We start listening.

I don't mean bending over backwards to please all of the third world nations--but I can guarantee that once everyone starts to feel involved in the process of literally making the world a better place there will be less violence. Especially if America starts living up to it's promise of respecting every human's right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I don't think that's too much to ask, do you?

By the way, there's a guy called Tom Barnett who basically agrees with me--not that he knows who I am, but he's got a book called The Pentagon's New Map in which he describes how the world is working, in his view. In a nutshell, his feeling is that there's the gap--the group of people around the world who are living in poverty or under oppression. This is where most of the violence is in the world. The rest of us are the core--we're rich (well, relative to the gap) and we seem to be oppressing those who are not. He says that if we can get those people in the gap financially and politically out of it, we'll be on the road to world peace, bitch (I'm paraphrasing again). This guy works for the US Naval College and is one of the most brilliant writers I've ever read.

My point is, involving the poor folks in the world is important and can actually change the world--but it starts with us taking a hard look at ourselves and realizing that our goals may not be as morally right as they are politically.