We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Bias Towards Power *Is* Corporate Media ‘Objectivity’: Journalism, Floods And Climate Silence

Click here to access article by David Cromwell from Media Lens.
No matter how extreme the weather, and how awful the hardships endured by ordinary people in the floods, the culpability of corporate-driven industrial 'civilisation', its inherent ecological unsustainability, and the urgent need for radical changes, must not be addressed in any meaningful way. 
Cromwell brings to our attention the extreme efforts of capitalist media to ignore the increasing incidence of extreme weather phenomena and their relationship to climate destabilization. Of course, capitalism, which requires growth and is driven by private accumulation of wealth, is the cause of climate destabilization; and, thus, its role must be ignored as much as possible. This ignoring of the relationship comes after decades of denying the relationship which is now so overwhelmingly supported by scientific evidence. Capitalism also is causing economic destabilization and this must also be denied and ignored. 

The answer to this type of journalism is obvious: the establishment of alternative media that exposes the relationship, and affirms the need for a transformation of the economy into one that is compatible with a healthy biosphere and meets the needs of all members of societies.