On 11 Aug 98 at 12:31, Michael Perelman wrote:
> Am I the only one who sees a distinction between Leo, investigating police
> interrogation methods, and Ellis, taking advantage of people who are not harming
> anyone else? How about the Greenpeace person who infiltrated the fishing fleet or
> the reporters investigating Food Lion?
> --
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> Chico, CA 95929
>
> Tel. 916-898-5321
> E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
Precisely so. The real question is which side are you on and for whom
are covert techniques used more than the techniques used per se. but,
if I may, let me pose another question: What would have happened if
the journalists who investigated Food Lion (a marginal player in the
grocery business) had investigated Safeway or some major players? And
further, what would have happened if the journalists had suggested
that the practices and conditions noted flowed inexorably from the
inner and defining total-cost-minimizing-total-profit-and
market-share maximizing logic of capitalism and that those practices
and conditions were but the tip of an inceberg looming increasing
dangerous and destructive with the progressive ripening of
capitalism?
Those journalists, had they managed to slip through the
paradigm-screening in the hiring process would have never been on
prime time and/or been summarily fired. Exposes can be used to
cover-up as well as to expose. They create the illusion that
something tangible can be done within the parameters and structures
of the system itself rather than the practices and conditions being
inexorable outcomes of the inner logic and defining structures of the
system.
For "mainstream" academics as well as journalists, there is no need
for master controllers approving/disapproving each and every journal
article or expose. The rules, constraints, imperatives of suvival and
success within the system are well understood: If you pose only
acceptable questions or provide acceptable exposes or work on
acceptable topics within acceptable paradigms you get preferred
access (to "newsmakers, "respectable" journals, grants, insiders etc)
which will yield the "big scoop" or the "big grant/prpject" which
will yield more widespread exposure which will yield name recognition
and "respectability" which will yield even more preferred access
which will yield... In other words, the spiral of SUCKcess in
mainstream academia and the media. Since the system and the
powers-that-be require the illusion of the possibility of reform, one
may even be drafted for the role of "respectable" muckraker or
iconoclastic academic--heterodox (what a nice, sterile and almost
respectable title). But don't go too far and don't pose the really
deep and penetrating questions--then you go from being an Edward R.
Murrow to being an I.F. Stone etc...
Jim Craven
James Craven
Dept. of Economics,Clark College
1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. Vancouver, WA. 98663
[EMAIL PROTECTED]; Tel: (360) 992-2283 Fax: 992-2863
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards Indians; their land and
property shall never be taken from them without their consent."
(Northwest Ordinance, 1787, Ratified by Congress 1789)
"...but this letter being unofficial and private, I may with safety give you a more
extensive view of our policy respecting the Indians, that you may better comprehend
the parts dealt to to you in detail through the official channel, and observing the
system of which they make a part, conduct yourself in unison with it in cases where
you are obliged to act without instruction...When they withdraw themselves to the
culture of a small piece of land, they will perceive how useless to them are their
extensive forests, and will be willing to pare them off from time to time in exchange
for necessaries for their farms and families. To promote this disposition to exchange
lands, which they have to spare and we want, for necessaries which we have to spare
and they want,we shall push our trading houses, and be glad to see the good and
influencial individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these
debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off
by cession of lands...In this way our settlements will gradually circumscribe and
approach the Indians, and they will in time either incorporate with us as citizens
of the United States, or remove beyond the Mississippi.The former is certainly the
termination of their history most happy for themselves; but, in the whole course
of this, it is essential to cultivate their love. As to their fear, we presume that
our strength and their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to
shut our hand to crush them..."
(Classified Letter of President Thomas Jefferson ("libertarian"--for propertied white
people) to William Henry Harrison, Feb. 27, 1803)
*My Employer has no association with My Private and Protected Opinion*
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
