Here's break-through piece sent out by “MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media.” (This “Media Alert,” called “Adjusted Curiosity,” is December 17.) I've become less inclined to post echoes of the mess we are in, and more interested in what digs deeper so that we can understand the forces that are in play. Understanding is power, and this piece helps us to know a different face of the enemy. The title is “Life in a Box,” and it's commentary from beyond the box about how we are inside it. Also, there's a section that you have to read, about one person's impact as a result of writing some very clear letters. It's a success story that makes you feel real good, and gives you a glimmer of hope for anything you might do. Here's a taste from the rest of the piece: In some 60 Media Alerts published this year, we have shown how media performance overwhelmingly promotes the views and interests of established power…professionals, including media professionals, are not liars. They are people who have been selected and trained to subordinate their capacity for critical thought to a professional 'standard'. They do this without awareness in the understanding that it is 'just how things are done'. Journalists are totally, 100%, loudly and uncompromisingly honest – within the box delimited by power. And it works as long as no one lifts the lid and takes a peek outside the box… One individual writing a couple of passionate but rational and factually accurate letters, had helped to neutralize one attempt by this country's Foreign Secretary to promote a war by deceiving and manipulating a national radio audience. This was a tremendous triumph for Darren Smith personally and a real sign of what can be achieved. Anyone who thinks writing letters, and other forms of dissent, makes no difference should reflect on this example… Psychologist Stanley Milgram reported that the most fundamental lesson of his study on obedience in modern society was, “ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible, destructive process”…Milgram's second key lesson was that when other “ordinary people” refuse to obey, when they refuse to stay meekly in the box, and instead claim their human right to speak out in the name of their own perceptions, their own thoughts, their own truly felt compassion for the suffering of others, this has an inordinately powerful impact on the world around us. Greedy and destructive power based on thoughtless obedience is supremely vulnerable to compassionate rebellion. We should never lose sight of this.
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