Like I Said

In these heady days of Democracy Export, there is the Right kind of "freedom," where the US invades, occupies and privatizes (or funnels money to those who see things Our Way), and then there's the Wrong kind. The editors at the Washington Post wholeheartedly agree, which explains their rather open and honest disgust for populist expression in the Americas.

I ran across WaPo regs here and there back in my media activist days. My closest brush came when I debated the WaPo's editorial page editor, Stephen Rosenfeld, at the Smithsonian (topic: media during wartime). Spent a week prepping for this. Took the gig quite seriously. When the day came and I sat through Rosenfeld's opening statement, I realized that the guy had done no homework and was relying on conventional wisdom and the fact that he was a WaPo heavy hitter. It became one of my easier debates. The guy had nothing. And his contempt for my argument for greater media independence and news consumer awareness deepened when, after asking me where I'd gone to college, I replied that I hadn't.

"Well then, how do you know all this stuff?"

And that's when I truly understood the corp media mentality. The idea that average people can study and learn about the power structure and who it serves, or worse, can actually debate those who frame the news, simply astonished him. I don't think he ever really considered it. So the above WaPo ed attacking poor people for fighting foreign corporate dominance is nothing new. Their contempt remains intact.