The U.S. Media and Hugo Chavez

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In December 1998, a new President was democratically elected to lead the Republic of Venezuela, one of the United States’ leading suppliers of oil (1). Hugo Chávez, a left wing, ex-coup leader with an open, unapologetic distaste for U.S. foreign policy and a determination to give his own country’s government a complete overhaul, was immediately portrayed by the mainstream U.S. media as a threat. It’s no secret that socialist and third world countries are consistently given a bad name by the American press, but the case of Venezuela has been one of constant personal attack on the President himself. Since December 1998, the media has been used consistently as a method of antagonizing Chávez, employing tactics that promote a culture of negativity toward him amongst the American people. Now one could argue that things are bit different now - Hugo and President Bush have been touring concurrently through Latin American countries, and while the fiery Venezuelan has been met with open arms, Bush has been welcomed at every stop with fierce demonstrations and burning effigies. What I want to look at here, though, is the context that coverage of this situation has been built within. Bush may have low approval ratings, etc. but anyone following the relationship between Bush and Chavez via the mainstream media will not be looking at the most recent events with a fresh mind. We’re going to do a little case study, primarily referring to the New York Times, and take a look at three of the tactics the press has used to make sure that any coverage of Chavez whatsoever is positioned in a negative way. This may seem obvious to Frigidspeak readers, (what? the media is biased? gasp!) but even if I’m preaching to the choir, I think an explicit investigation plays an important role in spreading some kind of media literacy about these issues. So to go about this essay stylz, the three tactics we’re going to analyze are: labeling, the placing of blame, and the use of traditional American values to promote anti-Chávez ideals.

Labels

President Chávez has been described by the U.S. media under a number of labels, and few of them complimentary. The first example is one employed at the beginning of this post, namely, his identity as the leader of a failed coup-attempt in 1992, resulting in his imprisonment. Despite having returned in 1998 to win the presidency by legitimate, democratic means, the American people are constantly reminded of this piece of his past in a derogatory way, seeming to suggest he is unfit for leadership because of it; an ex-convict, by American standards. From the New York Times front page headline announcing his initial election victory, “Venezuelans Elect An Ex-Coup Leader As Their President”(2) to an article over two years later regarding changes he’s making in the school system, where he’s described in the first paragraph as “a leftist 46-year-old former army colonel who once led an unsuccessful coup attempt”(3), and countless examples in between, this label repeatedly establishes the context within which the American audience is lead to evaluate President Chávez. Granted, this association is arguably subtle, as there are no examples to cite of explicit references to the disparaging implications of being an ex-coup leader. Though it may also be said that it is exactly this subtlety that is so easily overlooked and therefore effective in shaping public opinion, President Chávez is also consistently referred to as a dictator, despite his unmistakable position as a democratically elected leader. This seemed to begin in 1999 when Chávez introduced his new Bolivarian Constitution (4), containing a complete reworking of Venezuela’s previous charter. The day of the vote, the New York Times ran a story on page A3 stating that:

“Venezuela has the chance…to accelerate what its president…terms a ‘peaceful revolution’ or to reject what his opponents say would be a constitutional dictatorship befiting Mr. Chavez at the expense of the millions of poor citizens he says he represents (5). Rarely has a political fight divided this country, the world’s third largest oil exporter and major supplier to the United States, with such passion and invective” (6).

Having presented Chávez’s opponents as equal in number to his allies, the next day’s follow up story relating the vote’s actual outcome was far more humble. Tucked away on page A11 under the obstinate headline “Venezuelans Give Chávez All The Powers He Wanted”, reporter Larry Rohter writes: “Brushing aside predictions by the opposition that Mr. Chávez would use the new charter to give himself near-dictatorial powers, 71% of voters cast their ballots for the new Constitution”(7). This label becomes increasingly casual, particularly in the weeks leading up to his own remarkably temporary removal from power when his leadership is referred to as a “combative brand of left-wing authoritarianism”(8), his potential resignation a “choice between democracy and dictatorship”(9) and his time in power the “turbulent three-year reign of a mercurial strongman”(10).

In addition to being labeled an ex-convict and dictator, associations are constantly made between Hugo Chávez and Cuba’s leader, Fidel Castro, (who’s getting better!). Never explicitly referring to Chávez as a communist, it seems enough to discredit him as being labeled a friend and associate of Cuba, a nation whose politics have lead the United States to enforce a four decade-long trade embargo(11). This label was established as early as the day before Chávez was even elected, when he was cited as having "visited Cuba and praised President Fidel Castro and ‘the Cuban way’" (12). To question the validity of his Bolivarian Constitution, Larry Rohter wrote in his December 15, 1999 article: “’I feel happy to follow the path of Fidel,’ [Chávez] said during a state visit to Havana last month, adding that Venezuela was swimming ‘toward the same sea as the Cuban people,’ which he described as ‘a sea of happiness, social justice and true peace’"(13). He is spoken of as “strengthening ties with American antagonists like Fidel Castro”(14) and in the midst of his being temporarily overthrown, it is stated that “President Fidel Castro and Mr. Chávez had formed a close friendship”(15). This label ties in closely with a commonly accepted explanation of media bias: Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s Propaganda Model as discussed in their book Manufacturing Consent.(16). The fifth of five filters within this model is anti-communism, or as David Cromwell explains when updating the filter to the context of our times, “’the enemy’ or an ‘evil dictator’”(17). It is herein argued that the media employs the tactic of creating or emphasizing an evil dictator - all the more applicable to associate him with an actual communist - who is then “useful, essential even, in justifying strategic geopolitical maneuvering and the defense of corporate interests around the world, while mollifying home-based critics of such behaviour” (Cromwell). This is further proof that the labeling of Chávez is hardly beyond the usual methods of the mainstream U.S. media, yet his being referred to as a communist-friendly, dictatorial ex-convict is not the only tactic employed to advance the American people’s culture of negativity toward him.

Blame

Any reference made to the actual relations between the United States and Venezuela places the latter in an explicitly antagonistic role. Hugo Chávez in particular is blamed for any animosity between the two countries, as the media consistently portrays the U.S. as making every possible effort to maintain a good relationship. The coverage of President George W. Bush’s first summit in Montreal included a list of the obstacles impeding his ability to effectively negotiate with Latin America, emphasizing the fact that “Venezuela refused to accept the schedule for putting the hemispheric trade pact into operation”(18) without offering any of Venezuela’s justifications for doing so. A month later, Chávez, “an ardent nationalist…irritated American officials by refusing to allow their anti-narcotics flights to overfly his nation”(19) and later that year “annoyed Washington with his leftist pronouncements and reservations about American military aid to fight the war against drugs in Colombia,” effectively “test[ing] the limits of US tolerance”(20). Four days later, and a mere six months before President Chávez is forced temporarily from power, “his displays of friendship with leaders like Presidents Fidel Castro of Cuba and Saddam Hussein of Iraq…also irritated the United States, though American policy toward Venezuela remains one of engagement, rather than exclusion”(21). Though this coverage seems overt in its bias, it is arguably the language itself and not only the message conveyed that is of the most concern. Words like ‘irritate’, ‘annoy’, ‘refuse’, and the idea of ‘testing the limits of one’s tolerance’, when combined, speak explicitly to the notion of an impudent child misbehaving, ignoring the rules established for its own good by an older, wiser, ‘tolerant’ authority figure. Venezuela may be young in it’s history of democracy, but this case of one political leader expressing their disagreement with the policies of another is portrayed by the U.S. media instead, as a headstrong dictator needlessly serving as a thorn in the United States’ proverbial side. Rather than explain the alternative viewpoints of each side, Hugo Chávez is described as “eager to drive a wedge between the United States and Latin America”(22) regardless of any attempts reportedly made by President Bush to the contrary.

All-American Values:

Robert A. Hackett said of foreign news coverage in the Canadian Journal of Political Science that it “reflects Western biases by emphasizing ‘coups and catastrophes and other sensational and stereotyped depictions’ rather than positive and long-term achievements”(23). David L. Altheide took this claim a step further in the Public Opinion Quarterly, saying that “news organizations present negative and critical images of other countries because of procedures and guidelines awash in ideological interests compatible with Western values and policies”(24). One of the most effective ways the media can promote negativity toward Venezuela and its President is through the use of these ‘ideological interests’. Positioning Chávez as anti-democracy, or threatening to the American ‘way of life’ allowed by Venezuela’s oil exports, effectively establishes a context within which the American people approach the entire situation - one of patriotism and camaraderie against a perceived common enemy. When other methods fail, the media turn to pre-established American values, aligning Chávez with the likes of Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein (25). Two days before Chávez’s removal, the front page of the New York Times proclaimed “Mideast and Venezuela Turmoil Sends Oil Prices into Wild Swing”(26), explicitly blaming Saddam Hussein and Hugo Chávez for the high gas prices plaguing innocent Americans. Perhaps the most ironic article was one entitled “Latin America’s Muzzled Press”, placing Chávez as anti-freedom of speech, claiming that “he routinely launches into diatribes against the press, and his followers have physically attacked media outlets”(27). Hackett speaks of “US patterns of foreign coverage (such as a sensitivity to perceived threats to US interests or a bipolar Cold War view of the world which may ignore or distort the specificity of Third World problems”, all of which seem to culminate in one statement made by Pat Robinson on his delightful Fox News show The 700 Club in reference to Hugo Chávez’s assassination:

“I think we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop. But this man is a terrific danger…controlling a huge pool of oil that could hurt us very badly. We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don’t need another 200-billion-dollar war to get rid of one strong-arm dictator. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with”(28).

Clearly this is ridiculous. But you have to recognize that as much as we make fun of Fox News, in many parts of the United States, it’s actually a trusted, mainstream news source. Regardless of the success of spreading such an absurd viewpoint, this serves as an example of just how President Hugo Chávez is being portrayed.

Now next week I’m planning to write about public broadcasting in Canada, particularly the role of the CBC, and my beloved George Stroumboulopoulos. As a little teaser, if you will, his coverage on The Hour of Chavez was presented in the form of a list, The Top 5 Reasons Bush Hates Chavez. Long live alternative media and publicly funded broadcasting, the benefits and perspectives of which we’ll take a closer look at next week.

Endnotes

(1) Rohter, Larry. “U.S., Irritated by Criticism, Calls Envoy Home From Venezuela.” New York Times 3 Nov 2001: A4
(2) Rohter, Larry. “Venezuelans Elect An Ex-Coup Leader As Their President”. New York Times 7 Dec 1998: A1
(3) Rohter, Larry. “Venezuela Leader Broadens Focus on Reshaping Schools”. New York Times 7 May 2001: A4
(4) Bolivarian Constitution. 2006. Embassy of Venezuela in the United States. 16 October 2006. http://www.embavenez-us.org/constitution/intro.htm
(5) emphasis added
(6) Rohter, Larry. “A Divided Venezuela Votes on New Charter Today”. New York Times 15 Dec 1999: A3
(7) Rohter, Larry. “Venezuelans Give Chávez All The Powers He Wanted”. New York Times. 16 Dec 1999: A11
(8) “Latin America’s Muzzled Press”. New York Times. 4 Apr 2002: A22
(9) Forero, Juan. “Venezuela Woes Worsen as State Oil Company Calls Strike”. New York Times. 9 Apr 2002: A3
(10) Forero, Juan. “Venezuela’s Chief Forced to Resign; Civilian Installed”. New York Times. 13 Apr 2002: A1
(11) Cuba and the United States. 2006. PBS NewsHour. 18 October 2006. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/latin_america/cuba/index.html
(12) Schemo, Diana Jean. “Renegade Officer Favoured in Venezuelan Election”. New York Times. 6 Dec 1998: A4
(13) Rohter, Larry. “A Divided Venezuela Votes on New Charter Today”. New York Times 15 Dec 1999: A3
(14) Rohter, Larry. “U.S., Irritated by Criticism, Calls Envoy Home From Venezuela.” New York Times 3 Nov 2001: A4
(15) Forero, Juan. “Venezuela’s Chief Forced to Resign; Civilian Installed”. New York Times. 13 Apr 2002: A1
(16) Herman, Edward S, and Chomsky, Noam. “Manufacturing Consent”. New York: Pantheon, 2002.
(17) Cromwell, David. The Propaganda Model: An Overview. 2002. Chomsky.Info. 14 October 2006. http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/2002----.htm.
(18) DePalma, Anthony. “Talks Tie Trade in the Americas to Democracy”. New York Times. 23 Apr 2001: A1
(19) Marquis, Christopher. “New Drug Plan Shifts Focus in Latin America”. New York Times. 17 May 2001: A12
(20) Forero, Juan. “Venezuela Doesn’t See ‘Carlos’ as a Terrorist”. New York Times. 13 Oct 2001: A5
(21) Forero, Juan. “Venezuela Waits for ‘Revolution’ to Bear Fruit”. New York Times. 17 Oct 2001: A3
(22) “Mr. Bush Looks South”. New York Times. 23 Mar 2002: A16
(23) Hackett, Robert A. “Coups, Earthquakes and Hostages? Foreign News on Canadian Television”. Canadian Journal of Political Science 22.4 (1989): 809-825
(24) Altheide, David L. “Media Hegemony: A Failure of Perspective.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 48. 2 (1984): 476-490
(25) Forero, Juan. “Venezuela Waits for ‘Revolution’ to Bear Fruit”. New York Times. 17 Oct 2001: A3
(26) Banerjee, Neela. “Mideast and Venezuela Turmoil Sends Oil Prices Into Wild Swing.” New York Times. 9 Apr 2002: A1
(27) “Latin America’s Muzzled Press”. New York Times. 4 Apr 2002: A22
(28) Pat Robinson Clarifies His Statement Regarding Hugo Chavez. 24 Aug 2005. Pat Robinson. 12 Oct 2006. http://www.patrobertson.com/pressreleases/hugochavez.asp.

Go Green or Go Home

I visited Foxnews.com yesterday and discovered an alarming news video. It was entitled, Not-So-Green Gore? I watched the whole video through, and really listened to what the right-winged news station had to say. Almost immediately my “Bullshit Alarm” went off. John Gibson’s “The Big Story” segment of Fox News is claiming that at Al Gore’s Tennessee mansion consumes twenty times as much energy in a year than an average American household does in one year. Fox News is known for its right-wing agenda and I’m not surprised that they decided to bash Gore. Right off the bat, he is a prime target for scrutiny and anything Gore does environmentally will be under inquiry. You don’t see Fox News going in depth into the Bush Administration asking any questions about his War in the East do you?

The choice of words that Gibson uses in this segment is astonishing as well. He says that Gore wants people to hop on his “Green Band Wagon”. Using these words is showing the viewers that this is just a trend and it if you do not go green then it's not a big deal. It’s like saying, “Hop on the blonde hair band wagon”, or “Hop on the Doritos band wagon” With those simple words they trivialized Gore’s hard work on the global warming crisis.

Gibson asks the question, “What is Gore doing to make a different, apparently he talks a lot.” The following will be dripping with sarcasm: Um…Hello? I think Gore created this documentary, I think it was about Global Warming. I do also remember hearing somewhere that he travels all over the world to give his lecture about the crisis of global warming. You can’t tell me that Gore isn’t doing anything to make a difference, the very fact that you’re talking about him is because of the documentary, so Gibson, you’ve heard of it?

Next Gibson introduces Drew Johnson the president of the Tennessee Centre for Policy Research. Gibson asks him to explain the allegations against Gore. Johnson does not talk about anything else but the fact that Gore uses twenty times as much energy as an average household does in a year and that Gore is a hypocrite. Near the end of the segment between Johnson and Gibson:

Gibson: Is there something Green that Gore is doing that you and I are not discussing?

Johnson: Not that I can see.

Are you kidding me? Again, they are assuming that Gore has all this knowledge about how to reduce carbon emissions and you act like he does not do them. Johnson and Gibson are muddling the facts, what is an average household anyways? Because of Gore I know about the global warming crisis and now so do billions of people all over the world. Again I ask, is that not being green? You can’t tell me that that’s not green enough for ya Gibson.

Johnson then mentions Gore’s carbon credits are, “a way for him to buy his way out of his own guilt”. In response to this Gore brought on Laura Swartz, a democratic strategist. She explains exactly what Gore does, he calculates carbon footprint which means how much carbon his house emits, and offset the rest that can’t be cut back, because not everything can be. It’s not electricity, it’s CARBON EMMISIONS. Swartz explains it, and Johnson just ends the segments by saying that he has to look up what she just told him. Basically, Gore is doing everything he can, and they were just stooped.

Max’s Final Thought

Why does Fox need to bash Gore personally? Does this prove that global warming isn’t happening? Does this mean that the ice caps won’t melt and that we should all buy Hummers? If what Gibson is accusing Gore of is in fact is true, and Gore does emit a ton of carbon emission into the atmosphere (which in fact Fox News did NOT prove, but we’ll use this argument to make a point) does this mean that we could just forget about the problem of global warming and just sit back, relax and wait for the earth to warm up? Does this mean that all the hard work Gore has done for this cause should go unwarranted because John Gibson claims that Gore is a hypocrite? No, Fox News has proved nothing of the sort; Gibson actually accused Gore of something that he in fact did not even understand.

Gibson would do better to take a good look at the wonderful job Bush is doing to save the world and comment on that, because isn’t Bush using troops for his own fight for oil or something like that? John Gibson and Drew Johnson should watch Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” and then make sure that they understand what carbon is before they try to bash the man who is undoubtedly trying to save the world.

References:

Fox News: John Gibson’s “The Big Story”
http://www.foxnews.com/video2/player06.html?022707/022707_big_gore2&Big_Story&Not-So-Green%20Gore%3F&acc&Politics&-1&News&387&&&new

The Electric Car Graveyard

“In 1996 Electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust, and ran without gasoline.” This quote from the documentary, “Who Killed the Electric Car” is quite a shocker when considering for decade’s cars primarily ran on gasoline. In 1996 I didn’t know this was going on, granted I was only eleven years old and had no knowledge of cars or even the potential future environmental damage cars would inevitably endorse. In the last six months the talk about the environment was the number one concern on Canadians minds due in most part to the late start of the frigid winter in 2006. It was at this point that people began to actually see the damage first hand and were starting to get scared.

In the past couple of months I have seen more commercials on TV for hybrid vehicles than I had ever seen before. It angers me to see in a CBC article entitled Hybrid cars, written on February 16th, began with, “Auto manufacturers may be touting the age of environmentally friendly alternatives of hybrid, diesel and fuel cell technologies…”. Although it is great that auto companies are finally trying to sell cars that are healthier for the environment and that will lessen the emissions of greenhouse gases, but didn’t we already have this touting age in 1996 with the electric car? The electric car seems to have been completely ignored and forgotten about for the last eleven years since its existence as if it never were, like fairies or democracy in the United States. The idea of never having to use gasoline again with the coming of the electric car seems pristine for the environment, the customers dealing with the soaring gas prices caused by the War in the East and the people dying of cancer and asthma caused by the toxins in the air. But like the documentary title suggests, someone killed that idea and has set back the public knowledge of these scientific advancements of even more and improved fuel efficient cars.

When I see an SUV, I want to take a can of spray paint and write, “I’m killing the environment”, or “I’m the reason you have asthma” across the side of it, much like the animal activists that did to people wearing fur coats. It often seems like people just don’t care, they think that one single person can’t change the environment that much, but every gas powered car that burns a gallon of gas adds 19 pounds of CO2 to the atmosphere. Imagine the amount of CO2 and SUV would add.

Without a doubt the main culprits are the oil companies. It only makes sense that oil companies do not want people abandoning oil and going electric, they would lose the billions of dollars they’ve made and of course they would be out of a job, on the streets begging for food, freezing to death with a blanket made of a million dollar bills.

But are Canadians to blame as well? The director of J.D. Power and Associates in the CBC article states, “Canada is already fuel efficient and that is why hybrid technology is not growing as fast as perhaps the public might think…”. Yes Canada is fuel efficient much more than the United States but why be fuel efficient when we can be “fuel-less” and banish the idea of oil all together? It seems like a crazy proposal, but in 1996 this crazy idea was being developed by those who actually cared and people had the hope of a vehicle that would save the environment. This hope ended quickly and it was because of the all mighty dollar.

According to the documentary, “the claim that there is no demand for [an electric] car is false.” In 1996 people couldn’t buy an electric car, only lease it, which meant they had to fill out a ton or paper work and sometimes people would have to submit a resume just to lease one! And of course because all the vehicles were leased, when the auto companies were told to stop offering the cars, they could legally take the cars away from the people who leased them. Then they were all compounded; like hiding the evidence of a murder and throw in an electric car grave yard, never to be seen again. Fortunately, it seems in 2006 and 2007 a hybrid can be actually owned by a person, so it sounds like they cannot be ripped away from their proud owners are here to stay, for now.

Hopefully now that hybrid cars are being sold, eventually people will demand a gasoline and oil free car, but then again, it had been proven it would take more than consumer demand. It will take the integrity and willingness of the oil companies. Some of you probably will scoff and say, “yeah right, that will never happen.” Maybe it won’t, but if it does, it will probably come at a cost. Maybe it will be when all the ice caps melt, sinking half the world in its wake. Maybe it will be intense heat waves killing millions of people all over the world. Or maybe, just maybe it will be the realization that their children and their grandchildren won’t have the same life that they once had; or a life at all, to enjoy the billions of dollars that they’ve inherited from their relatives by knowingly destroying the world.


References:

CBC Article Hybrid Cars
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/autos/hybrid-cars.html

Who Killed the Electric Car?
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/electric.html

Capitalism to Save the Planet?

“Bashing flyers has become part of the conversation whenever the chattering classes gather, especially in London, Paris and New York. Admitting in such company that you like to fly is the new farting loudly.” When I read this quote in the article “Planes, Prizes and Perfect PR” from Economist.com, I knew I’d found my subject for this week.

The environment has been a topic of widespread public concern for six whole months now. Of course, science has pointed for decades to the problems we are currently facing, but within the last year, likely due in large part to Al Gore’s staggering documentary An Inconvenient Truth, the issue of climate change has entered the public discourse as a legitimate cause for distress. This after thirty years of attributing warnings to the rants of freedom-hating environmentalist quacks.

The consensus amongst scientists worldwide is that the lifestyles of heavily industrialized first world nations are destroying our planet. It really is as simple as that. But in a society where the supreme being we all fear and worship is the economy, a complete overhaul of the way we live our lives seems a difficult task, particularly without the assistance of lawmakers, happily sleeping with the corporations who benefit from the harmful emissions responsible for global warming.

Though hardly a flawless solution, the Kyoto Accord could have helped, but not without the cooperation of the US. Sadly, the agreement has now lost Canada’s support as well, thanks to our year-old Conservative minority government. The Opposition is attempting to legislate the promises made in regards to Kyoto, details of which can be found in the CBC article listed below.

But while the entire planet faces a crisis of such epic proportions that the sustainability of our entire race is at stake, our human will to survive seems not to be enough to stop us from driving SUV’s. Particularly as I sit at home, with my own little Toyota Echo buried in three feet of snow, I am confident that global warming will not be on the public agenda at least until spring. After an entire six months of public discourse, it became clear to one man that more incentive than continuing life on this planet needed to be offered.

Enter Sir Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin and all of its ventures. His next undertaking, having accomplished his dream of starting the world’s first space tourism business, Virgin Galactic, is to use what he knows best (Capitalism) to entice someone else to save the world.

It’s called the “Virgin Environmental Challenge” and it goes like this: “The Virgin Earth Challenge is a prize of $25m for whoever can demonstrate to the judges' satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth’s climate.”

The contest closes in 5 years, at which time the winner receives the first $5m in prize money. Ten years following that, if their invention has succeeded in removing greenhouse gases from our atmosphere and should continue to do so, they will then receive the remaining $20m.

Someone please tell me if this is anything more than global bulimia. When the scientific evidence is overwhelming that our planet will heal if we simply cut back our emissions, we don’t seem to have even tried! Instead, a man who makes the bulk of his staggering wealth from an airline and his own personal satisfaction from a space tourism business, is offering a tiny piece of the fortune to anyone who can suck the emissions he puts in back out. Air travel is one of the biggest offenders against the makeup of the earth’s atmosphere, and yet the only viable solutions seem to be the ones that don’t require any sacrifices on our part. Well why not? I can’t believe its possible that human beings on an individual basis would not make personal lifestyle changes - should they be made available and affordable - to save the planet, if only for their children’s sake. Even CEO’s of major corporations, including the least environmentally friendly ones, are rarely evil people at a personal level. But this contest – I’m sorry, “challenge” – is the kind of solution that presents itself when it is left entirely to the private sector to make all the changes.

Call me a socialist, for I’d proudly follow in the footsteps of C.B. Macpherson and if you insist, Hugo Chavez, but I believe we elect a government for a reason. And right now, the one directly south of us offers a $100,000.00 tax write-off to SUV owners, legally qualifying as “small trucks” when it comes to emissions standards. Apparently your average North American family requires a small truck, and is rewarded for it come tax time. The system is in place to provide incentives - financially, if that’s what’s required - to entice people to do the right thing. Instead of offering $25m to develop a way of taking the greenhouse gases out so we can keep putting them back in, why don’t we just stop? I flew from Chicago to Detroit this past weekend, and though the plane holds 137 passengers, it took off with 18 seats sold. Should I feel good about my contribution to the environment because I took a plane that weighed less due to lack of passengers? Doubtful.

Now Al Gore is with Sir Richard on this one, and Bill Clinton gave him a hug. I’m somewhat of the mind that anything Al Gore thinks is a good idea, I like too. Similar to the notion that if Johnny Depp agreed to be in a movie and I didn’t like it, I must be mistaken, because Johnny couldn’t be wrong. But I can’t help but think that this won’t stop the former future president of the United States of America from continuing to demand a little more. He's a politician - he knows how to play the game. And besides, the contest doesn’t close for another five years. What do we do until then?

References

An Inconvenient Truth. Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Perf. Al Gore. DVD. Paramount Classics, 2006.

“Kyoto Bill Sparks Constitutional Questions.” CBC. 15 Feb. 2007. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/02/15/kyoto-bill.html?ref=rss.

McQuaig, Linda. It’s The Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil and the Fight for the Planet. Anchor Canada, 2005.

“Planes, Prizes and Perfect PR.” Economist.com. 13 Feb. 2007. http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=8692742&fsrc=RSS.

Virgin Earth Challenge. 2007. Virgin Group. http://www.virginearth.com/.

Assassinating Iranian Uranium?

So I was crawling around through a bunch of newsfeeds when I noticed a story published by that terrible network Fox News. Sure, they're a bunch of pigs who give the most biased news ever. Sure, the story itself is written to sound as if Mossad did the right thing. Bastards.

Once I found the story, I decided to pop on over to my friend, George MacDonald. While chilling over a good game of Halo 2 in his room, we talked about the recent "news".

"So, what's your opinion on the assassination of an Iranian uranium researcher?" I asked as I made a headshot.

George shrugged. "Inevitable." George jumped down from the cliff and into a Warthog. "When a man is so predictable that you can see the gears turning in his head during his pre-written speeches, it ain't hard to figure out the way his thoughts will go. 'No war? But Iran bad. How we stop with no war? Secret war? No, that no make sense. Secret...secret...brilliant idea me have! Secret agents! New Bond movie was good, use my Bond. Kill nuke guys! I save world!"

I shook my head as I chased George in a Scorpion. "You know, according to FoxNews.com it was done by the Mossad, not Bush."

George sneered. "So Israel has started sneezing without the States telling them what colour to do it in? I hadn't realised."

I laugh after I destroyed his Warthog. "You seem somewhat jaded about this."

"Just a trifle." Came the reply. "I'm just mildly sick of the issue. Even assuming that Iran developed nuclear weapons that had sufficient operational range to directly threaten the United States, they aren't dumb enough to use it. The only system in which the stupid remain in power is a democracy. In every other system the safeguard of assassination due to extreme incompetence is allowed. So despite the image we get over here of mindless fanatics, the fact is, if these fanatics were mindless they would never remain in power for long."

"True enough." I settled back into my seat and continued the battle of Red vs. Blue.

Once I was done at George's, I decided to look deeper into the issue and see what other newsfeeds are saying about the assassination. Scanning through several newsfeeds and digging deep through the major North American networks, I turned up nothing. Nada. No bloody information from any other North American news source, which said something about North American reportage.

Instead of doing a search through newsfeeds, I decided I would metasearch on the topic and I visited the Gnome in order to hit 5 search engines at once. A few infinitely long moments later (god, I hate bad internet connections...you can't do any real work for any length of time) I had several pages of results, with each nearly identical result pointing to right-wing blogs by "independent" bloggers who reference the exact same fucking article -- a news report written by the Sunday Times Online, the biggest piece of right-wing Republican propaganda bullshit ever, second only to Fox News.

So I investigated the Times Online article, and lo and behold all there was instead of a newsfeed was a dead page which said "SORRY, TIMES ONLINE HAS GONE TO THE PUB". What website in its right mind would go to the pub? Was this a fucking method in order to generate something that amounts to sympathy in the public's eye? Was this message intended to create the illusion that the people who work for the Times Online are actual people and not a part of the propaganda machine? If so, it's complete bullshit. I hate these bastards.

At a dead end, I explored the metaresults again and found a left-wing news source in the South Pacific, "The Australian", that also covered the story. I found far more information than Fox News gave, the article explained the Israel government's position on nuclear powers in the Middle East (see the Israelites being the ONLY nuclear power...go figure. They're also closely aligned with the United States. Are you beginning to see the picture here?) and how they opened the plant to the press but instituted a formal ban on photographic journalism.

Huh, who wrote the article? I took a quick glance up to the top of the article and found the name "Sarah Baxter". A quick search turns up another article at the infamous Times Online, of which I only have a small snippet due to convenient site shutdown. "A Democrat for Bush: Sarah Baxter is a life long Labour voter in Britain and a registered Democrat in the United States. So how come she wants George W. Bush to remain president?" What do you know, a Democrat supporter of war in Iraq. No wonder the article takes on two different viewpoints at once. Make up your goddamn mind, woman!

I settled back down into my chair and smiled over dinner. This is one of those pieces of "news" that is actually "olds" -- something that could have been completely non-propaganda (a uranium researcher dying of gas poisoning) has been turned into a propaganda piece by the right-wing American news services that used a sympathetic viewpoint on the concept of "assassination". What has the United States come to now that it supports covert assassinations of civilians important to improving quality of life in 3rd world and 2nd world countries?

- T