Why such fears for the future?

Licho · Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 7:48 pm Post subject:

JayHMorrison, for me, you sound like arrogant american who things that USA is the only "right" country in the world, only country that does things right!

JayHMorrison · Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 8:22 pm Post subject:

Licho · Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 8:42 pm Post subject:

I think that you have proved to be enough of "arrogant American" to not further continue discussion with you, just my final remarks:

JayHMorrison · Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:52 pm Post subject:

Cool Hand Linc · Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 11:13 pm Post subject: Licho

Licho really is in the dark. I watch BBC here on the news. On the local college station they have German news that is translated. I also watch Spanish news as well.

Licho, what up with u anyway. Your hatred speaks loudly! Please don't hate. It will eat you up inside. Get help from a doctor. Physiotherapists are out there. Seek one out. It’s OK; everything will be all right if you just let it go for awhile. Shhh, just let it go. Do a google search. You can find help. It’s OK. Really, if you just let go of your hatred. Remember it’s a state secret that all our bullets and shells are lubricated with pig fat and than only to make the fire better.

Link

Chicagoan · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 19, 2004 Posts: 315

http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/TRANSCRIPTS/index.php?name=BOB%20JENSEN&origin=/INTERVIEWS/BOB.JENSEN/index.php&transcript=2003/02/BobJensen.01-1.2003-02-06

TRANSCRIPTS
Professor Robert Jensen discussing media, media & war (Iraq in particular) etc
Video interview in Austin, Texas on 6th February 2003
What’s wrong with contemporary mass media & what should we be asking from them?
I think everybody says the media sucks, the media is bad, I hate the media. These things circulate all over in the US, no matter what side of the fence you are on - on the right or left. Everybody has got complaints about the media, but vague complaints like that aren’t particularly useful. The question is "Why are our media bad?", which means you have to articulate criteria on which you are going to evaluate the media. So the fundamental question is "What do citizens need or want from mass media in a democracy?". That is, what do citizens need so that they can make good on citizenship and actually participate and not simply be sheep? That is the question, and I think that you can really articulate three main things that people need from news media in a complex industrial society like our own.

The first thing people need is an independent source of factual information. By independent, I mean independent of other centers of power, so that your needed information doesn’t simply come from your government, or doesn’t come from corporations, the two main power centers in the world we live in. So you need a reliable supply of factual information. But that is not enough, because everybody understands that facts in and of themselves, random facts, have no particular value. You need a context in which to understand them, historical, political and social. So journalists, while not being historians, who are going to write a book everyday, do need to provide some context for the facts they are reporting. The third thing I think we need from journalists, is to express or to give space for the expression of the widest possible range of opinion in the culture, because everyone understands that the process of belief formation involves rubbing up against other people’s ideas. You don’t figure out what you believe by going into a room by yourself and pondering. Most of us figure out what we believe by engaging other people in their arguments. So those are the three criteria in which I would evaluate news media in a democracy.

I think that the [American news media fails routinely on all three of those, and the place where you see that failure most profoundly is in coverage in general of foreign policy, but specially coverage of foreign policy and foreign affairs that involves militarism, military activity, the US going to war. It is at war time that you see the absolute failure of American journalism, and I think there are a couple of basic reasons for that. One is that we are The Empire. I think it’s important to start understanding America as an empire, and now as the empire. And you may want to ask the question, what does one expect from people in the heart of the empire? Empires aren’t based on dissent and critical activities. Empires are based on power and power operates to enhance conformity. So from the intellectual institutions of an empire, and the main intellectual institutions I am talking about are basically the academy and journalism – the places where knowledge is produced and disseminated – it is hardly surprising that both of those are sites of high ideological conformity to the goals of the empire. You don’t advance in journalism and you don’t advance in the academy by being a critic and a dissenter. It doesn’t mean the institutions shut out everybody who is critical. It means that those people who tend to advance are going to be those who conform to the demands of power. This is not surprising. It is hardly idiosyncratic to the United Sates. I am sure that if you look closely at nineteenth century Britain, at the height of the empire you would find basically the same kind of configurations. In the United States that ideological conformity, which you would expect in any great power, especially in an empire, is enhanced I think, by a couple of other things. One is the nature of media ownership which is now highly concentrated and completely commercialized. That is, the vast majority of people get the vast majority of their information from commercial entities. And those commercial entities are almost always organized around corporate hierarchies. Those institutions have their own interests. And their main interest is in seeing the existing system continued. So again, it is hardly surprising that journalists who come out of a corporate setting, are in some ways connected to, wedded to, the existing system of power. Again, it doesn’t mean that no critical journalism is allowed, what it means is that the basic tenets of the system, the naturalness of capitalism, the appropriateness of corporate hierarchies, the sort of willingness to just subordinate yourself to authority, that is so taken for granted in this culture, that despite all the rhetoric of freedom is a culture that highly encourages subordination to power. It is hardly surprising that out of those institutions you would get that orientation, you would expect it. In fact it would be dramatic if it weren’t the case. And it is the case.

The second one is the professional journalism routines that have evolved over time. As the United States moved originally from really a press connected to the freedom struggle, or at least the freedom of certain people in the culture, into a partisan press, into a penny press - the evolution of American journalism has taken us to a point where journalistic practices, journalistic routines, that is, the way in which day to day journalists go about assembling, writing, producing and distributing stories, has been collapsed into a set of what we call 'objectivity norms' or routines. And the thing about objectivity norms, it is crucial to understand, is they inherently, as they exist today in American journalism, they inherently privilege power. That is, they take as trustworthy and credible sources of information to be those centers of power. So if you look at a report on anything that has to do with American foreign policy, the main sources of information are going to be the White House, the State Department, and the corporate supported think-tanks that are basically in-line with those other two institutions. That’s the picture of the world that emerges, because those are the people that are deemed to be credible and trustworthy sources. You can have dissenting information sometimes included in a story, but it is going to be marginalized, it is going to be dissent from what it is accepted as the obvious way to view the world. Those objectivity routines and norms privilege power, and therefore in combination with the institutional structures, the business plan of journalism, corporate capitalism, the objectivity routines, and the ideological conformity that goes on in the culture, what do you get? You get a press that is fundamentally unable to fully inform citizens about policy.

PalatineCreator · Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2004 1:18 am Post subject:

Licho · Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2004 1:46 am Post subject:

I'm sorry for any other americans I upset, but I just don't like to see position showed by JayHMorrison. I have nothing against ordinary people, but I don't like shows of extreme arrogance combined with ignorance and distortion of reality. Position 'this is the only good country in the world, you all suck and depend on us for your freedom' is simply not based on current reality and not appropriate. Original question this sub-discussion is "do americans care most about their civil-liberties?" was a bit distorted by emotional arguments, but it's hard to prove or disaprove such thing. It's easy to be convinced that it's true, if are all americans bombarded in school and media that this is the most free, and best country in the world. In some ways it is, but do citizens care most about civil liberties, how can you say this?

Ok Jay, so you have a wife and are not a high-schooler, right? Ok so let's clear few things up:

You never mentioned that you are watchin foreign media, so I made an assumption that you don't, this was wrong. You were so quick at stating that "yours is bad, ours is good" that I expected you simply don't watch it. How do you explain difference in reporting of real-world events then?

Licho · Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2004 2:52 am Post subject:

Also Jay, since you did think that I'm from Poland, without any reason (and although I have something different in signature and described parts of history and current events completely different from Polish), I don't believe you fully that you have a Polish wife. Please show me that I'm wrong please ask your wife translate this few sentences:

Przez kolejne lata obserwowali, co dzieje się z badanymi mężczyznami, jaki jest stan ich zdrowia, czy jeszcze palą, czy może już rzucili nałóg, jakiego wieku dożyli, a jeżeli zmarli, to z jakiej przyczyny. Ostateczny raport nie pozostawił żadnych wątpliwości: palaczom groziło co najmniej dwukrotnie większe ryzyko, że nie dożyją siedemdziesiątki i trzykrotnie większe, że nie dotrwają do dziewięćdziesiątki w porównaniu z panami niekorzystającymi z uroków tytoniu. Głównym zabójcą palących okazał się zgodnie z przewidywaniami rak płuc

Falconoffury · Expert Joined: May 25, 2004 Posts: 1471

I would like to get back on the economic and resources discussion.

Licho, you said that oil depletion after peak would be at most 1.5% per year. Actually, what I read mentioned more like 1.5% to 3% per year. You should read the June newsletter for ASPO.

http://216.187.75.220/newsletter42.pdf

Take a look at the chart on page 2. According to the chart, the lower 48 US states will be producing 3.6 million bpd. By 2010, it will only be producing 2.6. That means that we need to find a new 1 million bpd source by then in order to just break even. That amidst rising demand yearly. Apparantly, the Bush administration was hoping that Iraq will be running at full capacity (between 5-7m bpd) before then to make up the downfall. Also look at Europe's losses of 1.4 million bpd by 2010. Russia will be going up a bit, while the middle east will be staying the same. The only promise for significantly increased production by 2010 is offshore deepwater drilling. The truth is that most recent oil discoveries were offshore finds. The technical problems are cost. While they can provide supplies, they will be driving prices up.

One of your arguments is that people will be working together on alternative energies even during a complete economic collapse. You basically think that people will be smart enough to continue to farm, transport food, and generally help everyone to survive. Well, your faith in the human race is quite ungrounded. Look at all the crap going on in the world today. Look at Nigeria and their fuel price protests slowing their oil production by several hundred thousand barrels of oil per day. The protests in Norway are even worse, halting over 400,000 barrels of oil per day, and threatening to soon halt more than 500,000. What about all those bombs going off on Iraqi oil pipelines? The country had to completely stop it's 1.8 million bpd exports completely for 3 days. They still haven't fully recovered. Now the UK is protesting fuel prices. Are these the people who will still be working hard to transport food so that everybody can avoid starvation? If they are protesting now, imagine how much worse it will get when oil gets significantly more scarce.

Several major US cities cannot support their populations on local farming, even if they wanted. Most major cities recieve food that is transported up to 2000 miles away. Miami is surrounded by swamp protected by environmentalist organizations, but still doesn't have enough local land to support enough farming. Los Angeles depends on irrigation systems because of very poor rainfall, but still depends on fossil fuels for water management, fertilizers, and pesticides. New York is one of the largest cities in the world, and has nowhere near the land to support local farming for its whole population.

You mentioned that biodesiel will be more widely used after peak. Well, in the US, biodesiel contribute's to less than 1 percent of all oil use in the country. There's also the fact that most farms require fossil fuel fertilizers and pesticides in order to manufacture biodesiel. Unfortunately, we won't be able to make nearly enough biodesiel to power the millions of semi trucks that transport the food thousands of miles in order to keep everyone from starving.

You mentioned that a country can take control of its industry as some countries did in WW2. Even in Europe, the population is a lot bigger now than it was during WW2. In the United States with nearly 400 million people, the government is nowhere near capable of taking over food production and transport of food for such a vast country. The world trade is more globalized now. Most countries import food, including Europe. If global trading stopped, and a government was ready to take control of most basic industries, you can still expect a worldwide food shortage, that has historically led to food riots (like in WW2).

Licho, please be more vigiliant about your own sources and evidence that you bring to the table. You don't need someone like me to point out that the ITER is still not proven, takes a decade to build, and only 1 is planned. You can reason that out for yourself. Denmark may be running on 20% wind, but you don't need me to tell you that the country only has a little over 3 million people. You should already be able to see the weaknesses in your arguments without someone else pointing them out.

Many parts of the world are going to experience a food shortage, leading to a die-off. We have 6.4 billion people alive in the world, and scientists say that we will have between 9 and 12 billion people by the year 2020 (depending on who you ask). A single acre of land can produce 4 to 10 times it's crop yield because of fossil fuels. The facts are completely sound on the issues, so I don't see why you have so much resistance to the idea of a die-off. At least if you want to keep arguing, come up with some evidence that doesn't have the glaring weaknesses your evidence has so far.
_________________
"If humans don't control their numbers, nature will." -Pimentel
"There is not enough trash to go around for everyone," said Banrel, one of the participants in the cattle massacre.
"George W. Bush loves poor people. He keeps making more of them." -unkn

JayHMorrison · Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2004 4:43 am Post subject:

I thought you were done? Couldn't stay away?