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* --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------