20366: Antoine: Thank you to Esser and Chamberlain! (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Guy S. Antoine <webmaster@haitiforever.com>



Would I be the only one to recognize how phony the wars
between the proponents of corporate and alternative media?
Media sells packets of information that are packaged to sell
to broad or narrow markets or specific constituencies.  They
"usually" contain hard facts, but they all have their particular
spin.  In Europe, it is usually very easy to distinguish what is
left or right of center, because the media institutions are
distributed with a greater variance factor.  In North America,
the center is so broad and dominant (and dull) that what
remains is divided into "leftist" and "right-wing" fringes that
regularly accuse the "center" to be insanely dominated either
by liberal or conservative elements, depending on where
one's sentiments lie.

In trying to stay informed about Haiti, I always check out
first the so-called "corporate media" to find out the latest
news about my home country.  I think that the "corporate
media" perform a great service in dissiminating the news
along with the unavoidable spin, because information
simply is never delivered without a spin of some kind.
For that service, I would be the first one to say "Hail the
corporate media!"  However, I will confess that once I
have read a story once or twice from the corporate media,
I usually engage in "delete-delete-delete-delete" just to
preserve my sanity.  To use one of my known pet peeves,
but so applicable to practically every situation covered
by the mainstream press, how many zillions of times do
I need to relearn that Haiti is the poorest country in the
Western Hemisphere or to make a neat moral distinction
between the chimeres and the rebels, the lavalas and the
opposition?  I usually make a quick run for the facts,
screen them out of the rubble, and then set out to digest
them for myself, according to my own subjective set of
moral, educational, humanistic, philosophical guidelines
which I confront regularly with those in my circle of
associates and correspondents.

So, I say, thank you Mr. Corporate Media, but if I took
you too seriously, I would soon be either bored out of
my wits or as mindless as a robot.

Then I begin to read (and hear) the alternative media, the
"Central Committee" dispatches, so derided by Greg
Chamberlain.  I, too, am aware of their spin, but
interestingly a lot of them provide, at least to me, some
interesting if not entirely unexpected analyses of what is
behind the facts.  Any left-of-center attempt to explain
a sequence or pattern of events or to construct a rationale
for the fundamental interests or behavior of the actors in
those events is bound to be targeted as "conspiracy theory"
by Chamberlain and others.  The right-of-center attempts,
on the other hand, are usually left unchallenged, but I
suspect that they are even more easily dismissed, so
heavy-handed they are in their demonization of specific
personalities, whether that be a Castro, an Aristide or a
Kennedy.  Not to say that the left-of-center do not engage
in demonization attempts either, but usually their demons
are my demons, for a variety of life experience reasons.

Why would Greg Chamberlain spend so much energy
defending the "Corporate Media" and deriding the
"Leftist Rent-a-Radical" Alternative Media?  It, no doubt
has to do with his own background as a journalist, his
many media connections, his life work to put it more
broadly.  Mr. Chamberlain seems oblivious to the spin
of the Corporate Media which tends to lull people to
accept things just the way they are or to blame Saddam
or Osama for all the ills in this modern world, just as
"Aristide's chimeres" are to blame for all the violence in
Haiti.  However, the Corporate spin is as undeniable as
the spins from the left-wing or right-wing media sources.
One simply has to learn to select and discriminate.  I, for
one has found enormous value in the less conventional
and harder-to-find articles distributed by Mr. Esser on
this list.  They are not, of course, of equal value and I
do not think that Mr. Esser is pushing that view.  Just
as Chamberlain himself has been a major contributor of
corporate media (and later) stories to the Corbett List,
Esser has performed an equally valuable service in
presenting viewpoints and analyses that are decidedly
contrary to the constructs favored by the Corporate
Media and, it must be said, by the U.S. Government.

So, I thank both Esser and Chamberlain and wish that
Chamberlain would accept (or "agree to") co-existence
and trust the rest of us to being able to sort out the news
according to our own realities or, if you like,  our own
predilections.  Spin away, my friends!  The earth spins
incessantly, but yet I feel very grounded.

Guy S. Antoine
Windows on Haiti
http://windowsonhaiti.com