QUOTES OF THE DAY: From Raymond Williams, the British media analyst and social critic: “Till the eyes tire, millions of us watch the shadows of shadows and find them substance,” as quoted in Bruce Cumings’ essential book, WAR AND TELEVISION (l992), and closer to home, from a sprit still with us: “Whoever controls the media - the images - controls the culture.” –Allen Ginsberg, poet

Can you sense the first tremors of a media shift, like tectonic plates quietly moving beneath the surface of the earth, as more skepticism about the war on terror moves from the less read op-ed columns to the front pages. The Times reports that the intelligence seized by the heavily hyped covert-ops teams from a Taliban base is useless. The subhead says: “AIR CAMPAIGN CONTINUES AMID SIGNS THAT SUPPORT ABROAD IS BEGINNING TO WANE. ”

What about support at home? THE CBS/New York Times poll today a slight negligible dip in public approval of the war, down to 88%. BUT doubts are stirring. Only one in four surveyed now thinks Bin Laden will be captured, and only 18% think the US government can protect its citizens. This follows another vague Ashcroftian warning of new terror threats coupled with a call for vigilance, and to go about our lives as usual. Right! I am worried because President Bush is expected at the World Series game tonight which could jinx the Yankees chance of a comeback. I fear a trick, not a treat, on this night before Halloween which Jesse Jackson wants cancelled.

More journalists are speaking out against media restrictions while The New York Times reports this morning that the White House Press Secretary is increasingly under wraps, and toeing a very circumscribed line. Chuck Lewis, the Washington bureau chief for Hearst Newspapers, says: “It’s like a large feather mattress. Everything is left warm and fuzzy,and there is never any issue that gets people angry. Everything ispossible. Everything is under consideration.” The Reporters Committee on Freedom of the Press reports: “So far, journalists trying to cover US actions in Afghanistan throughofficial channels have largely been restricted to Pentagon Pressbriefings, plus the occasional interview with service personnel on USaircraft carriers and humanitarian aid airlift.”

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION LAW SUIT

Why is this happening? Bruce Shapiro suggests one answer in a Nation article being circulated by Alternet.org: “Never in the nation’s history has the flow of information from government to press and public been shut off so comprehensively as in the weeks following Sept. 11. This has less do with preventing future terrorism than with the administration’s desire to control the public’s right to know. “LINK: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=19

The Nation is joining other groups in suing the government to lift one information blockade — its refusal to release the names of as many a s l000 detainees, held without charges. TheNation.com web site reports:

“This morning, a group of civil liberties, human rights, Arab-American,public access and other organizations, including The Nation, demanded therelease of information on the many people who have been jailed anddetained since the September 11th terrorist attacks. The groups objected to the curtain of official silence over the unprecedented detention of several hundred individuals for more than sixweeks. They cited the growing number of reports that raise seriousquestions about deprivations of fundamental due process, includingimprisonment without probable cause, interference with the right tocounsel, and threats of serious bodily injury.”

You can read the official FOIA request and related material by clicking below.

JITTERS AND HARASSMENT

Meanwhile the Taliban has arrested a Japanese photographer for illegally entering the country. The Japanese media identifies him as Daigen Yanagida, a freelancephotographer. In Los Angeles, a US photographer says he was harassed at the Los Angeles. The Sacramento News and Review reports: “A Sacramento journalist is taken into custody by police and forced to destroy photos by an over-zealous National Guardsman.” It’s not the same, I know, but all sides of this conflict are prone to committing abuses.

CNN CHIEF CRITICIZES LACK OF US OVERSEAS COVERAGE

News World reports: “CNN’s Chris Cramer has attacked the US media for “short-changing” thepublic on foreign news coverage in the years leading up to September 11.Cramer said that since the World Trade Center atrocities, Americans were”puzzled and angry that they were so ill-informed”. He was speaking at the Rory Peck Awards for freelance cameramen andwomen.

“Award winners included Talal Abu Rahma, who won the Sony-sponsoredInternational Impact award for his footage of the death of a Palestinianboy, whose father tried to protect him from crossfire during a battlewith Israeli troops. Hedley Trigge won the Hard News Award for footage of the riots inOldham, UK, during the summer.”

OTHER AFHAN SOURCES NOW AVAILABLE

There are human rights workers on the ground in Afghanistan. Groups like Human Rights Watch are issuing reports on civilian casualties. Sometimes we see the rubble, but rarely hear stories like this: “All of the witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watchwere adamant that there were no Taliban or Al-Qaidapositions in the area of the attack, which is in aremote rural area of Afghanistan. In almost all other cases of civilian casualties caused by the U.S.-ledbombing campaign investigated by Human Rights Watch,survivors and witnesses have been forthcoming inidentifying Taliban or Al-Qaida military positions located nearby which could have been the target of theattack. It is impossible for Human Rights Watch toverify independently whether Taliban or Al-Qaidamilitary targets existed in the area of Chowkar-Karezvillage, but the consistent statements of allwitnesses and survivors that there were none isnotable.”

HARASSMENT OF THE MEDIA IN ISRAEL TOO

The Committee to Protect Journalist reports: “Israeli soldiers allegedly harassed journalists trying to cover themilitary incursion into a Palestinian village last week.Journalists from Reuters, Associated Press and AFP were shoved around bysoldiers, who refused them access to the village of Beit Rima. ”

While the major media may be restricted in its reporting, an Indy Media web site in Israel, published in Arabic, English and Hebrew, has been carrying graphic reports from some of these areas . I saw ons uech report last night on the CBC, but not on CNN, although I could have missed it.

Tanya Reinhart reports: “For a whole week now, The Israeli army has been terrorizing cities and villages in the West Bank. As in the darkest days at the beginning of the present Intifada, desperate voices and reports pour through the internet, telling of massive shelling, including schools, hospitals, the university and a maternity house in Bethlehem, of curfew, houses being seized or destroyed, water tanks ruined in refugee camps. In Beit Reema, (The Village where the western press was restricted, see above, DS) the site of Israel’s latest show of horror, Ambulances were not allowed in. local residents witnessed that the wounded were left lying for 5 hours before they were allowed medical care (Ha’aretz Oct 25). Dr Majed Nassar of the Beit Sahour Medical Center reports on Wednesday evening, Oct 24 that “Today we stopped counting the dead and wounded, since the number rises hourly.”

MATH LESSON:THE COST OF A PLANE

Two days ago, I watched footage of employees at Lockeed-Martin leapin to their feet with wild enthusiasm when it was announced that their company beat Boeing to a two hundred BILLION dollar contract to build the next generation of jet fighters. There was little commentary about the need for the system or how to understand the comparative significance of this mind-boggling amount of money. A group calling itself the Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory emailed around one assessment. I cite it, not to argue for or against the weapons system, but rather to call attention to comparative information of a kind that is often missing in the media. This is by R.V. Scheide:

“Headline: Lockheed-Martin wins $200bn fighter contract (Financial Times, October 26, 2001)

“The US Gross Domestic Product is $10,202.6 billion ($10,202,600,000,000or $10.202 trillion) (1). The cost of those fighters is almost 2% (1.96%)of the entire US GDP.

It is 5 times the annual operating budget of New York City ($40.586 billion)

The cost of those fighters is almost 10 times the GDP of Afghanistan($21 billion) (3).It is almost equal to the entire GDP of Pakistan ($282 billion).

It is 3.5 times higher than the GDP of Iraq ($57 billion). The cost ofthose fighters is more than one-fourth of the GDP of Canada ($774.7billion). It equals almost one-fifth of the annual GDP of Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy ($1.13 trillion).

It exceeds one-fifth of the annual GDP of Mexico ($915 billion).

It exceeds the GDP of all the countries of Central America combined($128 billion).”

A TIME FOR BEING QUIET?

I quote a poet at the top of today’s dissection, so I might as well close with a ditty that is less poesy, but far more than mere prose. It was passed along by Aliza Dichter, the mediachannel.org Senior Editor.

The Sad State of American Jurisprudence (BarnacleBob) Oct 27, 07:45

“When they took the 4th Amendment away

I was quiet because I didn’t deal in drugs…

When they took the 6th Amendment away

I was quiet because I had never been arrested…

When they took the 2nd Amendment away

I was quiet because I didn’t own a gun…

Now they have taken the 1st Amendment away

and all I can do is be quiet…”

I am not sure how quiet this space will be in the next few days, as I travel to Bonn in Germany for the annual Media Tenor conference. From there I’ll stop in Boston to speak Saturday and Sunday at the Alliance for Democracy conclave at the Boston Public Library.May we all be safe, and remain focused on the search for truth beneath what Raymond Williams calls “the shadows of shadows.” My email box is open: dissector@mediachannel.org