Anniversary

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>But really, to suggest that the problem is a lack of information is, 
>I think, stretching it. There is probably greater availability of 
>information in the US than anywhere else; for instance, it's easier 
>for me to obtain pretty raw information about the US income 
>distribution than the Malaysian one. And to suggest that there's 
>greater and more accurate information in Australia, e.g., is, I 
>think, stretching it. I do not know whether there were any reports 
>in the Australian media last year which suggested that the official 
>report on the Tampa affair was fraudulent; I think a similar 
>incident in the US would likely have been picked up somewhere, even 
>in the mainstream media, and shown to be fraudulent.
>
>The problem is that information is framed by US parameters which, it 
>would appear, is pretty widely shared by Americans, and a fair bit 
>by Australians (e.g., the response to Alison Broinowski's op-ed in 
>The Australian recently), Bill Bartlett notwithstanding.
>
>kj khoo

The empire narrows the range of acceptable discourse and impoverishes 
the culture of the working class, with the result that, while 
information may be "out there," available for those who seek it, it 
just doesn't occur to most denizens of the empire to even look for 
it.  Why should it occur to American workers to seek out statistics 
of comparative wages, benefits, social programs, working hours, etc. 
of OECD nations, for instance, when they are daily told by the mass 
media that America is the greatest nation on earth, American workers 
have it best, etc., etc.?  More importantly, those who manage to 
discover such information and try to share it with others get 
penalized socially: propose a national health care, and you'll find 
yourself branded as a socialist in favor of forced collectivization, 
eager to deprive individuals of their freedom of choice, etc.  The 
hegemony of the ruling class ideas is stronger here than anywhere 
else.
-- 
Yoshie

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