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     J  _|   J |__| L   '-__| L     J   \| L  J |___:   J |--| L    ______
     | |-'   |  __  |    |__  (     | |\   |  | _____|  | |  | |   |______| 
     F |__-. F L__J J .-____] J     F L\\  J  F L____:  F L__J J   L______J 
     \_____/J__L  J__LJ\______/F   J__L \\__LJ________LJ\______/F
     J_____F|__L  J__| J______F    |__L  J__||________| J______F 
 
   ___      ____      __  __    __    _  _   ____   ____.             _  _
 ,"___".   F _  ]    F  \/  ]  / J   F L L] F___ ] F___ J    _ ___   F L L]
 FJ---L]  J |/ | L  J |\__/| L LFJ  J   \| L'--7 / '-__| L  J '__ ",J   \| L
J |   LJ  | | /| |  | |'--'| | J  L | |\   |  / //  |__  (  | |__|-J| |\   |
| \___--. F  /_J J  F L    J J J  L F L\\  J J  L.-____] J  F L  '-'F L\\  J
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    t h e  n e o - c o m i n t e r n   e l e c t r o n i c  m a g z i n e
                 I n s t a l l m e n t    N u m b e r  1 7 0
                  
                         We Are the New International
                         September 16th, 2001
                         Editor: BMC

                                             Writers:
                                                  BMC


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 ;P                      Featured in this installment                      .b
 $                                                                          $
 $                    Capitalism, the Media, and Us - BMC                   $
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   `nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn'

                                EDITOR'S NOTE
                      (please do not read the following)

        I couldn't decide whether to save it or destroy it.  Know the
  feeling?  I have heard several N-Com readers express this sentiment about
  society, humankind, etc., so I know you know (and I know that you know
  that I know you know, I think).

        Maybe it's just sentimentality - maybe it's ALWAYS sentimentality,
  but this article means something more.  What it lacks in style it more
  than makes up for in terms of intent and honesty.

        Now read on, forget the whirlwind of capitalist propaganda cast
  about you by the mainstream media, and take refuge within these words.
  They speak for you.


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 ;P                     CAPITALISM, THE MEDIA, AND US                      .b
 `q                                by BMC                                  p'
   `nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn'

        Capitalism - according to my dictionary, it is "a system based on
  the private ownership of the means of production, distribution, and
  exchange."   This definition does not contain the words "evil" or
  "exploitation," but I assure you, if the dictionary was produced by
  non-capitalists, that might be the case.  My definition of capitalism
  might read something like this: "An evil system of private ownership
  where corporate bosses exploit the labour of the workers, underpaying
  them and controlling their lives to the point where such words as
  `freedom' and 'dignity' are no longer applicable."

        Here is a brief clarification of the term "means of production"
  (also referred to as "property").  In agricultural societies, `means of
  production' is a term used to describe ownership of land.  The land
  allows the owner to produce crops.  In agricultural societies, land is
  the most important asset.  If you own it, you can do what you like with
  it - and that means hiring a bunch of peasants to farm your land for you
  and rewarding them with payment - they are allowed to live on your land
  and usually have enough food to eat.  In return, you sit back in your
  castle with a cold Coors 16 ouncer and roll around in your hoardes of
  gold and pricey gems.  They do all the work, and you make all of the
  money because you own the means of production.  In an industrial society,
  the factories are the means of production.  If you own a hubcap-making
  plant, the workers create hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of
  hubcaps every day, but the amount you pay out in wages is only a fraction
  of that.  Because you own the means, you decide how much the workers get
  paid (hint: it isn't going to be a fair wage, because then you will not
  make as much money).  In a post-industrial society such as ours, we have
  all kinds of businesses and none of them really seem to produce anything.
  However, owning the means of production in our society is to own the
  means of producing money.  Those who don't own property have to resort to
  selling their services in order to make whatever small amount of money the
  property owners decide to give to them.

        Capitalism is an economic designed to promote individual success at
  any expense.  As long as it's legal - or if you can find your way around
  the law - you can screw people over by giving them less than what they
  deserve.  When one person receives more than they deserve and the other
  receives less than they deserve, this is called an "unjust transfer."
  Unjust transfers are the basis of capitalism and capitalist success - it
  is the only way that you can get ahead in this society.

        There are all kinds of unjust transfers such as theft, and fraud,
  that are against the law - however, the kind that I am interested in
  discussing is the legal kind of unjust transfer.  There are two major
  kinds of unjust transfers that I believe make the capitalist system
  inherently evil - these are 1) exploitation of the working class by those
  who own the means of production and 2) inheritance.  I have already
  discussed the exploitation of the working class somewhat in my
  description of the means of production, so I will leave that for now -
  however, I could stand to write a few words on the topic of inheritance.

        Inheritance - this phenomenon earns its place as one of the most
  evil things about the system of capitalism.  If there is anything that
  makes it absolutely impossible for the average person to be competitive
  in the world of capitalism, it is inheritance.  This is the device that
  ensures that you will never ever be rich as long as you live, no matter
  how hard you work or how smart you are.  Richness is something that can
  only be achieved by right of birth.  Consider a child of a member of the
  working class as compared to the child of a corporation owner.  The child
  of the worker can do everything in their power to get ahead, and yet they
  will never be as financially successful as the corporate owner's child.
  In fact, even at the fetal stage, this corporate child is more wealthy
  than the worker's child will ever be.  Even if the rich child has no
  strength, intelligence, ambition, or work ethic, inheritance ensures that
  the working class child cannot ever compete.

        But if it were only so simple as the struggle to be filthy stinking
  evil rich.  Not everyone needs to own a corporation in order to validate
  their existence.  This is illustrated by all of the people who do not own
  corporations and yet are happy and somewhat financially successful.  The
  real problem is that corporate owners are maximizing their own profits,
  not simply by keeping us from owning or own multi-billion dollar
  businesses, but by sucking every penny out of us, giving us the option of
  being paid poorly or being unemployed.  Given these choices, many of us
  work at minimum wage because it is our only option.  Much of the working
  class lives from paycheque to paycheque without economic security -
  without the guarantee that they will be able to pay their bills next
  month.

        Marx said that the slave has something over the worker - job
  security.  I always considered this idea to be somewhat funny until I
  understood the sentiment behind it.  A slave's master is genuinely
  concerned that the slave continues to retain good health - this is
  because a slave is purchased and must be maintained by their owner.  A
  corporation owner has no such concern.  Today's worker can be replaced at
  a moment's notice.  There are plenty more potential workers for a boss to
  choose from - compare the current unemployment statistics to the stats of
  unemployment among slaves in ancient Greece or the 18th century British
  Colonies.  One might argue that living conditions are better for
  contemporary workers, but it would be quite another thing to claim that
  today's wages are fair.  Consider, for example, the following statistics:

                In 1995, 5.2 million women, children, and men - 18 percent
          of the population - lived below the poverty line in Canada.  Of a
          nation's seven million children under the age of eighteen, almost
          one-and-a-half million - or one child in five - lived in poverty
          in 1995. (statistical findings of Battle and Laxer)

                The average income for the richest 10 percent of Canadian
          families in 1971 was $107,000 - 21 times that of the poorest 10
          percent.  By 1996 Canada's richest were making 314 times the
          average income of the poorest. (statistical findings of The Globe
          and Mail)

                In 1992, the OECD reported that the top one per cent of the
          Canadian population owned twenty five per cent of the country's
          assets.  (Compared with 18 per cent in Britain and 42 per cent in
          the US).

        Wealth exists in our society, but as individuals we have no access
  to it.  The working class makes up the biggest percentage of our society,
  so it may seem surprising that we have no power.  I agree - it is
  ridiculous that we, the source of power for the machinery of capitalism,
  are unable to use our power for our own purposes, but only for the
  purposes of helping the rich become richer as we become poorer.
  Sometimes I don't understand what is holding the working class back, but
  at those times I'm assuming that the working class is a united group -
  that we share common goals - when this is not the case.  Of course we all
  have our own goals.  Some of us even buy into the system of capitalism
  and have hopes that someday we will be "rich" and "successful."  But what
  do you expect from a society that is fragmented and brainwashed?  It
  sounds like a harsh criticism at first, but I assure you that
  fragmentation and brainwashing are two of the things that keep capitalism
  going.

        Capitalists often discuss the nuclear family (mother, father,
  children) as being the foundation for a successful society.  At the same
  time, they attempt to blame society's problems on the nuclear family and
  the disintegration of this unit.  Now here is the important part - the
  reason that capitalists appreciate the nuclear family is because it is a
  perfectly fragmented unit.  It is so small that it is practically no
  bigger than a single person, and yet it gives the appearance of being
  something more (but zero power plus zero power still equals zero power).
  When divided into little family groups, people are more isolated from one
  another than in a culture where clans or strong unions exist.  This is
  crucial to the maintenance of capitalism - if the working class were to
  join together to attempt to achieve a common goal, they would be
  unstoppable(!), and this is the last thing capitalists want.  They want
  the struggle to continue being waged on an individual basis, because, as
  individuals, they have power, and they will continue to have power as
  long as the rich are allowed to have a monopoly ownership of the means of
  production.

        The nuclear family is a tool used by the ruling class to disable
  the solidarity of the working class, and, as if that's not enough, the
  convention of the nuclear family allows capitalists to brainwash the
  working class and convince them that capitalism is not bad and that, in
  fact, it works in their favour!  In a recent issue of the Christian
  publication Focus on the Family, James Dobson, a Doctor of Christianity,
  suggests that the breakdown of the nuclear family is a huge problem
  because, "It comes down to this indisputable fact: The family is critical
  to the propagation of the faith."  In other words, he wants the Christian
  faith to be able to socialize (brainwash) people on a family-by-family
  level because families are the most susceptible to propaganda.  It is
  interesting that he promotes the nuclear family even though it is clearly
  a reason why the working class remains so poor.  Does this mean that
  Christianity and capitalism may have a common thread?  While this remains
  uncertain, he ends the article by saying, "We will need to make the
  financial sacrifices necessary to slow the pace of living."  (Why do I get
  the feeling that "we" doesn't include James Dobson?)

        It is clear that the nuclear family can be, and is, exploited
  through fragmentation and brainwashing by media propaganda.  Now I will
  discuss how the media is used to trick its unsuspecting audience.  Be
  warned - you may never be able to enjoy watching the news again after
  reading the following section.

                The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages
          and symbols to the general populace.  It is their function to
          amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with
          the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate
          them into the institutional structures of the larger society.  In
          a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class
          interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda.
          (Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent)

              Media represent the primary, and often the only source of
          information about many important events and topics... the media
          define for the majority of the population what significant events
          are taking place, but, also, they offer powerful interpretations
          of how to understand these events. (Hall et al, Policing the
          Crisis)

        As the nuclear family is a device designed to strip us of power,
  the media is a device designed to strip us of knowledge.  Isolated and
  alienated from society, our only way to receive information is through
  media - owned and controlled by the upper class.  We are offered one
  voice - the voice of the upper class - and alternatives to this voice are
  hard-sought.  From 1996 to 2000, Conrad Black was in control of sixty
  percent of all daily newspaper circulation in Canada.  This included all
  of the daily papers in Saskatchewan, Newfoundland, and P.E.I., and
  two-thirds of the dailies in Ontario.  He also owned the Vancouver Sun,
  Calgary Herald, Ottawa Citizen, and the Montreal Gazette, among others.
  On October 22nd, 2000, CanWest Global announced it was purchasing most of
  the newspapers owned by Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc.  The $3.5 billion
  deal included 13 major metro newspapers and hundreds of smaller
  publications.

        So let's keep in mind that the owners of media are not working
  class people like ourselves and that we have no reason to believe they
  would represent working class views.  In fact, the opposite is true.  The
  media consists of newspaper corporations, television corporations, radio
  corporations, and internet corporations (the key word here being
  "corporations").  Any sane corporation owner would not publish
  information that is anti-corporate - therefore, corporate-owned media
  should be expected to be pro-corporate in nature, and thereby
  anti-working-class.  In fact, when former Toronto newspaper publisher
  John Basset was asked, "Is it true that you use your own newspaper to
  push your own political view?", he replied, "Of course, why else would
  you own a newspaper?"

        As an example of the ways in which media manipulate public opinion
  in favour of the political viewpoints of the upper classes, consider the
  following statement, made by Tony Clarke:

                Perhaps the greatest hoax promoted by the media moguls in
          recent years has been the notion that Canada's debt woes were
          caused by overspending on social programs.  Not only did the
          media propagate this myth, but they almost totally ignored the
          real causes disclosed by non-business studies (including
          Statistics Canada), such as the Bank of Canada's persistently
          high interest rate policies and the massive drain on public
          revenues due to lower corporate tax rates and high
          unemployment. (The Silent Coup)

        The media deserves a gigantic share in the blame for the
  continuation of capitalism and the disorganization of the working class
  because they make a habit of giving us information that is exaggerated,
  skewed, or completely falsified.  They do this to make capitalism look
  good and to blame individuals for their own failure.  This makes one
  wonder why the people of the working class wouldn't support newspapers
  that represent them.  But then, flipping through TV channels or surfing
  the internet, we are bombarded by these annoying little things that we
  continually try to ignore - advertisements.

        We all know that advertisements corrupt the media visually, but
  they also corrupt it in terms of honesty and integrity (or should I say
  further corrupt it?).  The media is funded by paid advertisements from
  corporations and thus must pander to them in order to keep their
  advertising dollars rolling in.  When a newspaper chooses to advertise,
  it can afford a lower price at the newsstand due to the money made from
  advertisements.  This increases newspaper sales.  With this extra income,
  the newspaper can improve on its features, formatting, production, etc.
  Therefore, a newspaper without advertising cannot make as much money or
  be read by as many people as a newspaper with advertising can.

        So a newspaper must get an advertiser at any cost.  The problem
  with this is that advertisers prefer certain types of magazines, TV
  shows, internet sites, etc., over other ones.  They're not going to tell
  you that your medium needs to be capitalist - it just has to appeal to a
  rich audience that happens to only like pro-capitalist media.  As Bernard
  Schissel says, the "narrowing of opinion may not necessarily reflect
  consumer demand in general, but rather the demands of particular
  consumers - advertisers and well-heeled audiences who need and prefer a
  particular world view and a particular take on social issues."  In other
  words, if you don't appeal to the rich, they won't read your newspaper.
  Advertisers want to advertise to the rich.  Therefore, if you want to be
  able to be financially competitive, you must convey a pro-capitalist
  message.  Advertisers don't want to advertise to people who aren't
  interested in buying anything.

        So for this reason, along with the fact that the media itself is a
  corporation, the media actively promotes capitalism and avoids promoting
  any alternative viewpoints.  An example of this is provided by Tony
  Clarke:

                The pro-business free trade position promoted by the media,
          and the limited coverage given free trade opponents, were largely
          determined by those who owned and controlled most of the
          newspaper and broadcast media.  Similarly, even though the
          Chretien government was elected on the promise of jobs! jobs!
          jobs!, most of the Canadian media downplayed the rash of
          corporate downsizing during the mid-1990's while big business was
          making record profits. (Silent Coup)

        The media deliberately ignores the problems of the working class,
  while simultaneously criticizing the governments of other countries.  A
  prime example of this is the American (and, to a lesser extent, Canadian)
  anticommunist movement.  In the last half of the 20th century, communism
  was portrayed as the ultimate evil, haunting property owners because it
  threatened the root of their class position and their superior status
  (corporate owners are not interested in sharing their wealth with the
  poor).  Communism was used as a scare word to label anyone who supported
  the left and labour movements.  Anyone who challenged the state of
  affairs was considered pro-communist or insufficiently anticommunist.
  The government brainwashed the common people into thinking that communism
  was a threat to the working class as well as the wealthy, and the
  communist scare was born.  This was used as a tool to unite the people
  against a common enemy, distracting them from the injustices occurring
  within their own government.

        This is not to say that the media only reports good news.  In fact,
  there is plenty of bad news, and it is usually blamed on individuals
  rather than the conditions created by society.  Speaking specifically
  about youths, Bernard Schissel says that "the lumping together of
  adolescent issues transforms a problem that originates with the structure
  of society into one that appears to originate with youth themselves."
  Certainly this can also be applied to other marginalized groups, the
  working class being one of them.

        What is not questioned is our institutions - the economic system,
  the education system, and the state of the community.  If we are to
  believe the adage that you should treat others as you expect to be
  treated in return, why should we be surprised when those who are punished
  with poverty lash out at society in return?  People commit crimes,
  especially property crimes, out of desperation.  If the needs of
  society's members were met, they would not have to satisfy their needs
  through illegal means.

        We are socialized by the media to believe that problems occur on an
  individual basis because of the faults of individuals.  Nothing is said
  about society's responsibility, because more responsibility means a more
  just distribution of wealth and better social programs - the opposite of
  what capitalism endorses.  So the media blames the individuals, using
  them as scapegoats while the crimes of corporate fraud and oppression of
  the working class are nowhere to be seen in media.  The breakdown of the
  nuclear family is often blamed for crime, but we know that the purpose of
  the nuclear family is to put the working class at a disadvantage.  Yet no
  alternatives to the nuclear family are sought.  Perhaps the reason that
  this is not discussed is because the media needs to keep the nuclear
  family in existence in order to keep their control over the working
  class.  Blaming the nuclear family's failure (while continuing to
  brainwash) is a technique used by the upper class further used to confuse
  the working class, making them ignorant and apathetic.

        An ideal exists that the media is supposed to be unbiased.  This is
  obviously not the case, but the media continues to perpetuate this myth.
  It is surprising that they are allowed to pass their propaganda off as
  fact.  However, Bernard Schissel informs us that "the [capitalist's]
  response to biased news accounts is simply to `let the buyer beware.'
  The suggestion is that if people do not like watching, reading, or
  listening to partisan accounts of crime and deviance, then they have the
  freedom not to."  Well there you have it - practically all the freedom in
  the world.  We lucky Canadians have the choice to either receive biased
  news reports that promote capitalism and brainwash us to believe that we
  do not have the right to better living conditions - or we can choose not
  to receive any news at all!  Wow, I'm sold on this system!  It's
  practically the best thing I've ever heard of! (ps this is sarcasm)

        I must apologize for my previous rage - I got a bit carried away.
  I have taken a moment to calm down, and I suggest that you do too.  If
  you are just tuning in, I'm talking about how terrible the media is and
  what we can do about it.

        While we are being brainwashed by the media, we're not thinking
  clearly.  We're not thinking about how to make things better.  If we're
  going to take some responsibility as a society and improve the current
  state of affairs, we're going to have to do this by finding alternatives
  to mainstream media and create a new social order that is more unified
  and less self-centred.

        We can work toward social unity and demand social responsibility.
  We can gear society so that smaller units can survive and not be at a
  disadvantage.  In order to do this, we will have to gain a greater
  understanding of our society, our rights, and ourselves.  This can be
  done through the support of education and alternative media that do not
  promote a capitalist agenda.  These must be endorsed, supported and
  demanded.  Through education, we can answer several of our questions and
  ask many new ones.  By thinking about the improvement of society, we can
  come up with more ideas about how to improve it.  It has been proven that
  alternative media can make a difference, and the following quotation
  provides an example:

                In the first half of the 19th century, a radical press
          emerged that reached a national working class audience.  This
          alternative press was effective in reinforcing class
          consciousness: it unified the workers because it fostered an
          alternative values system and framework for looking at the world,
          and because it 'promoted a greater collective confidence by
          repeatedly emphasizing the potential power for working people to
          affect social change through the force of 'combination' and
          organized action. (Curran and Seaton)

        The message doesn't get much simpler than Marx's plea: Workers of
  the World, Unite!  Unity and social responsibility is our one hope for
  eventually stopping the corporations from mowing us over.  If we work
  together, we can claim the means of production and distribute wealth
  fairly, putting an end to poverty and social inequality.  The way to get
  there is not through immediate revolution, but to unite our minds in this
  important cause.  This can be achieved through alternative media and
  education, and in no other conceivable way.  It is crucial that we get
  involved and make a difference, so let's get started right now!

  
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 Copyright 2001 by The Neo-Comintern                           #170-09/16/01

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