RICKI OTT—In 1989, FAIR did a study of the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, then as now considered among the most serious news programs. And between February and August of that year, they did seven segments on the Valdez spill, not one of which included an environmentalist. Debate on that show was illustrated by the then-chairman of Exxon and the governor of Alaska, who sat down to have a cozy conversation, in which the governor of Alaska said that the chairman of Exxon was being far “too heavy on his own company.”
fullwidth
-
-
Much to our chagrin, other nations have a thing or two to teach us about art, culture, and how to live life. Chauvinism is a recipe for self-inflicted imbecility.
-
MICHAEL K SMITH—Abbey called himself a racist in Confessions of a Barbarian, though he defined the term as an aversion to being dominated by a race to which one did not belong, which definition would render nearly all of humanity “racist”: “Am I a racist? I guess I am. I certainly do not wish to live in a society dominated by blacks, or Mexicans, or Orientals. Look at Africa, at Mexico, at Asia.” Abbey was aware of the contributions of Western colonialism and imperialism to the widespread misery found in those regions, but argued it was but “Western guilt neurosis” to assign primacy to them in accounting for Third World conditions in the late twentieth century.
-
Love Letter to Heroes From the Village of the Dark Spring
10 minutes readJOHN R. HALL—In the depths of despair during the deaths of loved ones, I abandoned my own true hero’s journey, ceased writing, discontinued paying any attention to the crimes of Empire, the deep state, the military/industrial complex, and all the usual suspects, turning my back on the very issues I cared about most deeply. In retrospect this may have been my second inexcusable regret and mistake. The decision didn’t even give me any peace of mind, didn’t stop the anger and rage, didn’t ease the pain of knowing that the crimes against humanity and the assault of Pachamama continued unabated and with growing acceleration.
-
No More Bullshit: Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill
17 minutes readED CURTIN—”Street journalism has its limitations. It needs to be placed in a larger context. Our world is indeed without end and the heat of the moment needs the coolness of time. The bird that dives to the ground to seize a crumb of bread returns to the treetop to survey the larger scene. Breslin and Hamill stuck to the ground where the bread lay…”