alternative press

Russian and Iranian English television broadcasters need to issue invitations to Teresa May, Boris Johnson, Niki Haley, Macron, Donald Trump et al, to defend their aggressive stances against Russia, Syria, and Iran,” says candobetter.net’s James Sinnamon. Unbelievable accusations against sovereign states are issuing from the governments of the United States, Australia, the UK and Europe. We are talking about the lines run by US-NATO on the Scripal spy poisonings and the so-called chemical weapons attack in Ghouta, which they have refused in the UN to investigate on the ground. Despite the total implausibility of these stories, the western corporate press, which includes ABC Australia and SBS, promote them uncritically. Yet the purpose of these stories is to provide excuses for war. The only beneficiary of the promotion of war is the military-industrial-media complex. The only thing working against this complex is the alternative media, which happens also to include English programs run by Iran’s Press TV Iran and Russia RT. Why are these programs so popular, especially RT? It is because they appeal to intellectuals because they are so much more complex and nuanced than the frustratingly illogical confabulations that pass for mainstream news in the Anglosphere. Press TV Iran’s The Debate is an especially robust forum.

World leaders like jealous giant children

In a stunning abuse of power, one of the main theatres of initial promotion is the United Nations. The US ambassador, Niki Haley, continues to make outlandish claims in the bullying style of her predecessor, Samantha Power. It is like watching gangster molls with airs, who do not realise that they are being live-broadcast as they threaten plans to assassinate or otherwise remove presidents, invade countries, and bomb cities, all based on totally fabricated enemy ‘profiles’ of popular elected leaders as bad guys. In fact, if war-profits were not a consideration, you would be reminded of jealous children in a playground bullying their more popular colleagues.

Major threats

The major threats to modern civilisation: war, overpopulation, overconsumption, and energy resources scarcity. For a few years ago after the fall of the Soviet Union, war seemed a remote pastime, carried out between small tribal states, but then it began to metastacize from former Yugoslavia, to Afghanistan, to Iraq, then to Libya. Next was Syria and, at the same time, Ukraine. It is like watching the events leading up to the First World War. If you didn’t look at the regional oil and gas interests and rival hegemonies for countries that would afford access to them, then the whole thing seemed inexplicable. Even so, many people whose lives and lifestyles are not yet threatened, just cannot believe that people who have power would do such harm, apparently just out of ego and a desire for even more money.

Alternative press should invite accusing western powers to defend their arguments

James Sinnamon (the man who built Candobetter.net) suggests that PressTV Iran and RT could be still more effective, if they issued invitations to the leaders making accusations, to defend these on PressTV Iran and RT.

“I think that Russia, Iran and other nations, who are defending countries like Syria from military aggression, as a matter of urgency, could use their newsmedia - Russia's RT and Sputnik and Iran's PressTV even more effectively.
Perhaps those who conduct debates and interviews on Press TV Iran - Marcia Hashemi and Waqar Rizvi - and Russia's Oksana Boyko, Afshin Rattansi, [1] Sophie Shevardnadze and others - could, prominently and repeatedly, issue standing invitations to the likes of Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Nikki Haley et al., or their delegated spokespersons, to put their views on their programs and have those views discussed and debated.
Surely, if Theresa May et al. are so confident that they are speaking the truth, they would jump at the opportunity to show, to the audiences of RT and PressTV, how the views presented by those stations are wrong?

Of course, I don't expect that Theresa May et al. will acccept. If they don't RT and PressTV should include their names in lists, displayed prominently on their sites, of all Western political leaders who have declined to appear on RT and PressTV.

Given that hundreds of thousands have already been killed by military aggression, just since the Gulf War of 1991, and that the stakes for humanity are so high if this pattern is not stopped, I see know of no reason for the managers of RT and PressTV to pull any punches from now on.”

Sinnamon adds that, Afshin Rattansi, of Going Underground, leads the way to some extent because he is always issuing invitations to his detractors to appear on "Going Underground". If those who declined to be interviewed by Mr Rattansi were prominently listed, his impact would be even greater.

One of the most critical emerging power struggles of the 21st Century is taking place – the battle to control the Internet. The Internet offers up the opportunity for exercising extraordinary political, economic, and military power. Already exploitation of this super-network has helped create the world’s most valuable company, toppled governments, led to the largest wealth transfer in history, and created the most extensive global surveillance system ever So who won the Internet Wars in 2015? E-diplomacy expert and author of the recently released Internet Wars Fergus Hanson has delivered the verdict.

Here are the winners and the losers for 2015 Internet Wars 2015 Winners Losers Monopoly Interests Civil Liberties Extremists Intellectual Property Citizen Power Security of Internet Communications Hanson said 2015 was the year a handful of tech titans consolidated their growing control of key economic chokepoints online, making Monopoly Interests the clear winner in 2015.

“In 2013, two tech titans made it into the Fortune 500 top 10 by market “In 2015, there were three in the top five and four in the top 10.

“Apple, the world’s most valuable company, was worth about twice as much as the next two largest companies combined.

“Companies like Apple, Google and Facebook are securing control over key economic chokepoints online.

“This is not to suggest smaller companies will disappear from the Internet, just that to do business, they’ll have to operate through these titans,’ he said.

Hanson said 2015 was also the year extremists ran roughshod over the West “The world’s most powerful militaries, their sophisticated intelligence services and vast financial resources were outmanoeuvred by a relatively tiny number of degenerate fanatics,” said Hanson.

Meanwhile, in the US, the Internet Wars of 2015 have seen the shake up of the Presidential election like never before, shining a light on the aggregating power of the Internet for ordinary citizens.

“Republican voters have flocked in droves to outsider candidates Donald Trump and Ben Carson while, in the Democratic campaign, Hillary Clinton has faced surprisingly strong competition from Bernie Sanders,” said Hanson.

Civil liberties, intellectual property and security of Internet communications are all under siege online, with Hanson declaring them all losers in 2015.

Hanson said the Internet might have extended free speech to many, but in the big picture it has been a double-edged sword.

“Companies like Facebook, with one fifth of the world as users, has begun to exercise an important role as the new moral guardian.

“Its leaked censorship guidelines from 2012 revealed it forbade breastfeeding but gave the thumbs up to crushed heads,” he said.

So is peace possible online?

Hanson said, as a global commons, the Internet will always be open to abuse by individuals, companies, and governments.

“But if broad rules of the road can be agreed, breaches can become the exception rather than the norm, allowing the most important features of the Internet to be preserved.

“This is not an overnight fix. The first step is recognising the turning point we have reached, the critical importance of what’s at stake, and the need to act.

“As an advanced economy and open democracy Australia has a critical interest in securing the Internet’s immense promise into the future.

“Australia should develop a digital foreign policy that identifies our core economic, social and security interests and engage in leading global debates,” he said.

It's not tax-deductible and what you see is what you get. If you like it, please try to help support it.

More about candobetter.org

Most of our contributors and many of our readers are becoming aware of how unfree the mainstream commercial press and even ABC radio and TV are in Australia, due to the common commercial focus of government and the growth lobby, which seems to be the source of most of the problems that candobetter.org focuses on. Just to remind you, Candobetter.org is "A website for reform in democracy, environment, population, land use planning and energy policy." Perhaps we should add that it is also a website for media reform.

I started out writing about the environmental effects of population growth. Later I began to write about who and what are driving population growth in Australia - notably the property development and finance lobbies. Then I realised that the reason we could not stop these commercial interests from ruining our country was that they had overwhelmed democracy and coopted government. Finally, I have come to the conclusion that the disempowerment of democratic communication in favour of commercial and corporate interests has been made possible by the cooption of the media.

This has occurred through the reduction in ownership of the media and through the weakening of cross-ownership laws. It has also occurred, historically, through the ownership and cost of media (communications) technology. Owning a television or radio station or a newspaper print works was not within the purview of everyone. It was a very expensive business.

Thank heavens that the whole business of mass communcation has changed. Electronic publication is comparatively cheap and the readers are not so passive and are able to contribute material. Many people still do not understand this revolution and it is imperative that they rapidly begin to, since, at the same time that a new free press has become accessible, democracy, freedom, and vital resource sufficiency are increasingly menaced by corporate interests. These interests and the associated spin continue to be fostered and represented by the commercial mainstream press.

It is up to you and me and us to encourage a self-reliant free press.

Whilst maintaining a website is relatively cheap, it is not cost free, and requires several thousand dollars a year. It is also very labour intensive, yet all of us on candobetter earn our livings in other ways.

This is a labor of love and a political commitment. Please help candobetter.org's owner - James Sinnamon - by making a financial contribution if you can. Alternatively, if you have a spare v-server, perhaps you would like to share it.

Contributions to:

Please e-mail james [AT] candobetter.org for details of the bank account.

It's not tax-deductible and what you see is what you get. If you like it, please try to help support it.

The initiative for this announcement came from me, Sheila Newman, although James Sinnamon is aware of it and has surrendered to my persuasion on this matter. He is not a commercially oriented person and earns his living in a low-paid occupation because of his committment to social, political and ecological reform. It would represent a hardship for him to pay for the extension of equipment and virtual space that candobetter.org now needs. I have personally contributed to candobetter.org in the past and will continue to do so, simply because I know Australia and the world need it.

In solidarity.

This article is a spin-off from Tax-deductibility and Environmental Groups & NGOs, which talks about the role of candobetter.org and other independent alternative media in representing views and assisting citizens to organise at all levels, for instance on behalf of wildlife and vegetation or in state planning laws, or immigration policies.

Where do you go when government and the media don't care?

Disappointed in government departments and ministers, environmental organisations often try to take their cause to the mainstream press. But this is usually just as problematic in the end. Why? Because the press, like the government, dictates narrower and narrower parameters for what they will designate as 'newsworthy'.

How the press manipulate democratic protest

If you are using the press as a political forum, you need to be aware that the press is now so globally powerful due to its control of the market and market perception, that it controls elections and economies much more than ordinary citizens do. That means that it controls political parties, because parties rely on pleasing the mainstream press in order to get publicity of any kind. New political candidates, many of whom must be better than the politicians now in government, come and go and disappear every year without your ever hearing of them.

NGOs and citizens need to consider that both the opposition and the government represent the interests of the commercial media and that even the ABC has to reflect the interests which the commercial media owners define. For instance it officially preserves the two party system which many of us refer to contemptuously as Tweedledum and Tweedledummer.

A very good, and scary example of this was here:

"The ABC's approach to election coverage focuses on the Government and official Opposition on the basis that one of the two major parties will ultimately form government and thus represent the principal points of view. Whilst not discounting the views or policies of the other parties and independent candidates, coverage in respect to such parties and candidates is determined on the basis of newsworthiness. The Policies also note that the ABC reserves the right to withhold free broadcast time to political parties, including those not currently represented in the Parliament concerned, on the basis of the measure of demonstrated public support for the party." Quote from an official ABC radio response to a complaint in 2009. See: ABC dismisses complaint claiming privatisation not 'newsworthy' in 2009 Queensland elections"

Environmental groups have a similar problem to new political candidates - independents and parties. The problem is that the government and the press tend to use the inability of most environmental and other non-government groups to show that they have thousands of financial supporters as an excuse not to represent their concerns. Both the press and the government, if they were really socially concerned, would act to publish, publicise and help people organise over an important cause. But they don't.

It is usually difficult for NGOs to do their real work or for independent politicians to prepare their policies and simultaneously to find thousands of supporters, especially if they are just starting out. There may be thousands, indeed millions of people who potentially support a cause or a political swing against the status quo, but how do you find those people and how do they find you?

Neither the government nor the press will help you to become strong; they will only react to strength already acquired. Usually that strength can only be built up by groups with a strong commercial basis these days. It wasn't always so. In a small population where economic activity was more localised, people shared geographically common concerns and communicated face to face. These days people tend to form their opinions, even on local issues, from the dominant news-media, rather than asking their neighbours or attending local forums.

It has become so due to the commercialisation of our social infrastructure, the huge scale on which we now operate, and our reliance on government and the mainstream press to tell us what is happening. We rely on these mediums for communication. But they are not communicating on our behalf and the 'information' and 'news' the pass on is chosen according to different priorities than the public good. Clearly the ABC reflects the interests embedded in the status quo and does not seek or respond to public input in any consistant and significant way that might change this.

Hidden commercial interests affect presentation of opinion

The commercial press also have many commercial interests apart from just selling papers or television shows, but it is not easy or indeed possible to know what most of these are at any time. What we must realise is that the commercial press is really like a lot of big interconnected corporations that are advertising products they want you to buy, using articles which will create an environment to increase the market for those products, raise the price of shares on certain commodities and products in the short term (so that they can be bought and sold), and manipulate opinion as to what is really important and what is really happening in the reader's environment. The press - television, radio and newspaper - has to a large degree - substituted a manufactured reality for ordinary interpersonal networking and the individual's forming of an idea of their political, social, economic and biophysical environment.

This manufactured reality which tells us things like 'Most people don't care about wildlife or animal cruelty', 'Most people agree with overpopulation and overdevelopment, considering it reasonable', 'most people benefit somehow from overpriced real-estate', 'it is okay to privatise water and other vital resources' - is actually the direct opposite of what most people think, but how would most people know that? In this way the mainstream press alienates citizens from each other because those citizens believe that few people share what are actually widespread values. Those values become taboo and we are all silenced.