Podcasters Way

The Lannan Foundation

Chris Hedges – On the Work of Sheldon Wolin

University of Minnesota

Harriet Washington – Medical Apartheid

CHIASMOS

David Harvey – A Brief History of Neoliberalism

Best of the Left Podcast

Making the Connection

News Brief Wall Street Journal

Strong Demand at Greek T-Bill Auction

Top Stock Analysts

A Serious Warning: There‘s a Storm Coming

Top Stock Analysts

A Serious Warning: A Secret about U.S Finances you

won‘t read Anywhere Else

The Dig The Visionary Institute

Seven Design Principles for a Spiritual Economy

Truth Out.Org

You in a Suspect Society: Coming of Age in an Era of

Disposability

The Rutherford Institute

SWAT Team Mania: The War against the American

Citizen

Dissident Voice

Psychology of Denial in the Age of Consumerism

The Blog Spot Unknown

America‘s Obsession with Celebrities and Celebrity

News: When is it too much?

Transcript &

Interviews I’Humanite in English

Samir Amin: Colonialism is Inseparable from

Capitalism

A Break with History Info Please

President Franklin D. Roosevelt – State of the Union

Message 1934

Info Please

President Franklin D. Roosevelt – State of the Union

Message 1935

Info Please

President Grover Cleveland – State of the Union

Message 1887

The Exchange Outside the Beltway

Evidence for the Job Stewart Hypothesis

URLs

Making the Connection – www.bestoftheleftpodcast.com

A Brief History of Neoliberalism –

http://beemp3.com/download.php?file=4625126&song=A+Brief+History+of+Neoliberalism

Chris Hedges on the Work of Sheldon Wolin - http://podcast.lannan.org/2011/05/30/chris-hedges-on-the-

work-of-sheldon-wolin-17-may-2011-audio/

Harriet Washington – Medical Apartheid –

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/sphpod/sphpod/2008/02/medical_apartheid.html

Strong Demand at Greek T-Bill Auction Nick Skrekas

January 18, 2011, 6:19 AM ET Greece‘s latest T-Bill auction garnered

strong demand, with 80% of the take-up

coming from foreign investors, the head of

Greece‘s Public Debt Management

Agency, Petros Christodoulou said

Tuesday.

Earlier Tuesday, the PDMA said that the

country raised €650 million from the T-

Bill auction. The uniform yield came in at

4.10%, which is the same as the last 13-

week T-Bill tender in November, and is

slightly better than market expectations.

The auction was oversubscribed 4.98

times. PDMA may also accept another

30% of the auctioned amount in

noncompetitive bids, taking the total

amount raised to €800 million.

―We are very pleased to see continuing

investor support for our short-term paper

as foreign investors purchased 80% of the

auctioned amount,‖ Mr. Christodoulou

said.

Bond analysts have previously criticized

Greek T-bill auctions as not being a true

indicator of demand because Greek blue-

chip banks usually snap up close to 70% of

the auction, but that was reversed on

Tuesday.

―The auction went much better than

expected due to the robust take-up of

international investors and the yield came

in at the bottom end of the expected range.

The 13-week T-Bill is currently trading at

4.20% on the local HDAT trading

platform,‖ a senior local bond trader at a

blue-chip Greek bank said.

Greece resumed monthly T-Bill issuance

in January after a pause due to seasonal

factors in December. The auctions are

mandatory under the memorandum

agreement signed in May 2010 with the

International Monetary Fund and the

European Union for the provision of the

€110 billion bailout to stave off certain

default.

The debt-laden Mediterranean state has to

rollover debt of €4.22 billion in January,

according to local dealers. To date, the

PDMA has now raised €3.05 billion in a

26-week auction on Jan 11 and Tuesday

13-week T-bills, without the acceptance of

the noncompetitive bid tranche.

However, the Greek Finance Ministry has

previously said that it has high cash

reserves to cover January‘s obligations.

Bond market analysts say that the net

supply of Greek T-bills is close to zero

because it is essentially rolling over

expiring maturities.

Emese Bartha in Frankfurt contributed to

this item.

A Serious Warning: There’s a Storm Coming Posted by Porter Stansberry, Investment Advisory on June 14, 2011 6:00 pm

The research I‘ve laid out in the past few

days (here, here, and here) suggests

interest rates are inevitably headed higher.

But how much higher?

Over the long term, the average real rate of

interest on U.S. sovereign debt has been

around 2% a year. The latest Producer

Price Index (which we believe is more

reliable than the Consumer Price Index)

shows price inflation is currently 6.8%

annually. Add the 2% real return we

believe investors expect, and you get 10-

year Treasury bonds yielding 8.8%.

Currently, those bonds yield only about

3%.

This implies a huge collapse of bond

prices – a collapse of more than 50%.

A collapse of that magnitude would

completely wipe out the stock market. It

would be a massacre.

No one is expecting any of this. Everyone

believes something like this could never

happen. Yet this rise in interest rates

would only carry us to the average return

bond investors have earned over the last

several decades. It doesn‘t even consider

the kind of panic selling that would ensue.

In truth, rates might go considerably

higher than this for one fundamental

reason. If the bond market crashes,

investors would begin doubting America‘s

ability to finance its debts, never mind

trying to repay them. As rates rise, the cost

of maintaining our debts would grow

substantially – perhaps doubling.

Keep in mind, the U.S. Treasury currently

pays only 1.4% annually to borrow $14

trillion. Yes, 10-year Treasurys currently

yield around 3%. But because the Treasury

has issued so much more short-term debt

than long-term debt, U.S. borrowing costs

are lower.

No, all our debts wouldn‘t ―reset‖ to

higher rates overnight. But the losses in

the bond market, the losses in the stock

market, and the resulting decline in

business activity would cause a lot of our

creditors to worry about our ability to

afford higher interest payments.

Think about it this way: By the end of

2012, our national debt will likely exceed

$17 trillion. Let‘s assume our average

interest increases to 4.4% – half the rate

we believe investors will eventually

demand. That works out to an annual

interest expense of almost $750 billion.

That‘s more than we spend on defense or

Social Security. Interest expenses would

leave the government spending almost

$0.25 of every dollar on interest payments.

Does that sound wise or reasonable to

you? Given these expenses, some of our

creditors would become reluctant to ―roll‖

our debt into the future by offering new

loans. This could cause a serious problem

for the U.S. Treasury.

Portugal‘s government recently had too

much short-term debt coming due and not

enough lenders were willing to extend

these loans at affordable rates. It suffered a

debt default. The country required a

bailout by the European Central Bank

(ECB). Lots of economists criticized

Portugal‘s borrowing strategy because

much of its debts were short-term.

Apparently, these folks haven‘t bothered

looking at the U.S. Treasury‘s debt-

maturity curve. We have. The numbers

are so shocking, we expect most of our

subscribers simply won’t believe us.

You can read all of the numbers for

yourself, if you‘d like. The Bureau of the

Public Debt includes them in its Financial

Audit, which you can read here.

Feel free to read all 35 pages… Or focus

on just one piece of data. It‘s all you really

need to know: 61% of all the marketable

Treasury debt held by the public will

mature within four years.

Thus, over the next four years, the U.S.

Treasury must either repay or refinance

more than $1 trillion in existing debt each

year – not to mention additional deficit

spending of at least $1.5 trillion. For us to

avoid a default, the U.S. Treasury may

have to borrow or refinance as much as

$10 trillion in the next four years.

That would double the amount of U.S.

Treasury bonds currently trading in the

world‘s markets.

Think about that for a minute. Then

consider the decades-low yields in the

Treasury market today, which would

surely rise to accommodate this enormous

increase in supply.

Now, try to arrive at any sort of scenario

that ends well for today‘s U.S. Treasury

bond market investors. We can‘t… We

don‘t know exactly what the end game

will look like or exactly when the bond

market will crash. But we know it is

coming. We know it can‘t be avoided. And

we know many investors will suffer

catastrophic losses.

Given these risks, the Federal Reserve

cannot allow the Treasury‘s borrowing

costs to increase. It cannot allow the dollar

to strengthen. It cannot allow the stock

market to fall or business activity to

slow…

That‘s why we are 100% certain the Fed‘s

promise to stop printing money and buying

Treasury bonds on June 30 is a lie.

Even though we know Bernanke will have

to turn back on the printing presses sooner

or later, we have no doubt the market will

react strongly to the presses‘ temporary

stop. Expect big moves: falling

commodities, a rising dollar, and even

falling stock prices.

We have been warning our readers since

the spring of 2010 that the stock market

was no longer broadly attractive. Since

then, valuations have only gotten more

extreme. A big correction is overdue. We

will likely get that correction this summer.

That means for the risk-averse investor,

the best advice I can possibly give right

now is to seek safety. Seek it in a

diversified portfolio of cash, gold, silver,

and a ―core‖ position of income-producing

blue-chip stocks bought at cheap prices.

There‘s a storm coming… but there‘s no

reason you should suffer, as the vast

majority of Americans will. Good investing,

* * * * * * * * * * *

A Serious Warning: A Secret About U.S. Finances

You Won’t Read Anywhere Else Posted by Porter Stansberry, Investment Advisory on June 13, 2011 2:00 pm

http://www.topstockanalysts.com/index.php/2011/06/13/a-serious-warning-a-secret-about-u-s-

finances-you-wont-read-anywhere-else/

Most people misunderstand two things

about the U.S. financial situation…

First, the U.S. government‘s official debt

burden might not yet have reached the

―red line‖ of imminent default. But our

entire economy‘s enormous debt burden

makes it nearly certain we will default on

our federal debt and many of our private

debts, too.

The U.S. is the world‘s largest debtor. As

a whole, Americans owe a total of nearly

$56 trillion (almost 400% of GDP). That‘s

federal, state, municipal, corporate, and

private (mortgages and student loans)

debts. The debt service on our total

obligation is $3.6 trillion a year.

It‘s hard to put that number into context

because it‘s so large. Think about it this

way: It‘s roughly the same amount of

money as the federal government‘s entire

budget.

To the extent our debts fueled past

consumption (homes, cars, credit cards,

health care, etc.), they are unlikely to spur

future economic growth. That‘s not to

mention a considerable portion of the debt

belongs to foreign investors, folks who are

typically more interested in building their

next factory in Bangladesh than in Bangor.

When you combine this ―debt tax‖ – aka

interest – with the size of our actual tax

burden (about $4.4 trillion when you

combine federal taxes with state and local

taxes), you can see why our economy is

struggling.

We‘re spending half our annual GDP on

taxes and interest.

Imagine if you had to spend half your

family‘s income on taxes and interest.

How would you rate your credit risk?

What‘s the likelihood of default in that

scenario?

More important, given our current federal

deficits and the looming entitlement crisis

we face (total unfunded future liabilities in

excess of $100 trillion)… how is it

possible to expect Americans will be able

to afford to pay more taxes?

What would happen to our budget if

interest rates rise because of inflation,

which seems inevitable?

We don‘t think many Americans – even

sophisticated investors – have considered

these numbers. Our foreign creditors will

realize they have no chance of being

repaid in sound money. Americans simply

cannot afford debt service, never mind

principal repayment. There are signs they

already recognize this…

Mainstream economists have long scoffed

at the possibility that our foreign creditors

might stop funding our existing debts at an

interest rate we can afford. When you pose

the question about our poor credit, they tell

you our trading partners can do nothing

about the dollar. If they want to sell goods

to Americans, they have to accept our

dollars. As Nixon‘s Treasury Secretary

John Connally said, ―It‘s our dollar. But

it‘s their problem.‖

For years, that was true. But it’s

changing.

Increasingly, U.S. trading partners are

taking our dollars and – instead of

recycling them back into Treasury bonds –

they‘re buying gold and strategic

commodities, like oil, copper, and steel.

That‘s why prices for these commodities

have soared.

That‘s obvious to most folks. What isn‘t so

obvious is what it means for the bond

market…

For the last nine months, the Federal

Reserve has been purchasing 70% of all

the debt issued by the U.S. Treasury. What

happens when the Fed stops buying? With

70% less demand for Treasurys, we expect

prices to fall. Benchmark interest rates will

rise.

Bill Gross, who runs the world‘s largest

bond fund, agrees… which is why he‘s

shorting U.S. government debt.

Higher benchmark interest rates – perhaps

sharply higher – should cause the U.S.

dollar to strengthen against foreign

currencies (like the euro) and against

commodities. It should also cause most

U.S. stocks to fall.

Tomorrow, I‘ll show you exactly what I

expect for stocks… and how we‘re

preparing our portfolio.

Seven Design Principles for a Spiritual Economy 2009 Gordon Davidson

http://www.visionarylead.org/articles/spiritual_economy.htm

When confusion and illusion reign, the spiritual approach is to cut through the Gordian knot by enunciating clear principles that

offer us torch lights on our pathway out of the swamp of fear, anger and confusion. Once this is fully understood by political and

business leaders, and some principles for a new, spiritually based economy are widely enunciated, we will enter a period of re-

designing our economic system, followed by a restructuring into a sustainable system. The following are a draft set of Principles for a Spiritual Economics that can lead us in that direction:

1. Sustaining, nurturing and protecting the living planet and all life within it, including humans, is the core principle for a new

spiritual economic system.

2. Everyone on the Earth has a right to a healthy existence. This means any economic system should be designed to provide

everyone with the basics of food, shelter, clothing, education, and health care.

3. Everyone has the right to earn their livelihood by contributing their gift to the whole. The spiritual and economic flourishing

of any society is based on the true contributions of each individual being welcomed, rewarded and integrated into the whole.

4. Those with greater gifts need to dedicate themselves to helping others develop their talents and gifts. The encouragement and

support for developing the unique contributions of each individual is a central purpose of a spiritual economy.

5. The health and well-being of the entire system is essential to the health and well-being of each individual. The individual and

the whole are linked in a interdependent relationship of reciprocal mutuality. The whole provides a place in the web of living

relationships that supports the well-being of the individual, and an individual's contribution enhances the whole.

6. All systems will self-correct if the underlying Life is free to circulate and reorganize itself. Rigid systems blocking

circulation for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many cannot be sustained. Once blockages are removed, life will

self organize into new, more open and free-flowing systems, providing full circulation to all parts of the whole. Goods and services imbued with spiritual intent and quality will be in greater demand in a spiritual economy. With an increasing

spiritual awakening, the spiritual essence within and around particular goods and services will be perceived and valued.

Youth in a Suspect Society: Coming of Age in an

Era of Disposability Thursday 5 May 2011

by: Henry A. Giroux, Truthout DePaul University, April 5, 2011

In spite of being discredited by the

economic recession of 2008,

neoliberalism, or mar­ket fundamentalism

as it is called in some quarters, has once

again returned with a vengeance. The

Gilded Age is back with big profits for the

rich and corporations, and increasing

impoverish­ment and misery for the

middle and working class. Political

illiteracy has cornered the mar­ket on

populist rage. providing a political bonus

for those who are responsible for massive

levels of inequality, poverty, mortgage

de­faults, unacceptable levels of

unemployment, and sundry other

hardships. As social protections are

dismantled, public servants denigrated and

public goods such as schools, bridges,

health care services and public

transportation deteriorate, the current

Was­hington administration

unapologetically embraces the values of

economic Darwinism. In doing so, Obama

and his cohorts reward its chief

beneficiaries, the mega banks, financial

industries and big business. Reinvigorated

by the passing of tax cuts for the ultra rich,

the right-wing Republican Party take over

of the House of Representatives along with

a number of state governorships are now

launching an ongoing successful attack on

the welfare state, workers, students, and

those who dare speak out against such

at­tacks. Neoliberalism in zombie-like

fashion is once again imposing its values,

social relations and forms of social death

upon all as­pects of civic life.(1)

For over 30 years, the North American

public has been reared on a neoliberal

dystopian vision that legitimates itself

through the largely unchallenged claim

that there are no alternatives to a hyper-

market-driven society, that economic

growth should not be constrained by

considerations of social costs or moral

respon­sibility and that democracy and

capitalism are virtually synonym­ous. At

the heart of this market rationality is an

egocentric philosophy and a culture of

cruelty that sells off public goods and

services to the highest bidders in the

private sector, while simul­taneously

dismantling those public spheres, social

protections and institutions serving the

public good. As economic power succeeds

in detaching itself from government

regulations, a new global fin­ancial class

reasserts the prerogatives of capital and

systemically destroys those public spheres

- including the university - that

traditionally advocated for social equality

and an educated citizen­ry as the

fundamental conditions for a viable

democracy.

Despite our knowledge of the corrupt

profiteering practices that instigated a

global financial meltdown, free-market

fundamental­ism appears to be losing

neither its claim to legitimacy nor its

claims on democracy. On the contrary, in

this new era in which we live,

consumerism and profit making are

defined as the ess­ence of democracy,

while freedom has been reconceived as the

un­restricted ability of markets to govern

economic relations free from government

regulation or moral considerations. As the

prin­ciple of economic deregulation

gradually merges with a notion of

unregulated self-interest, one consequence

is that people, eager to protect what they

now believe is their freedom, relinquish

their power and democratic rights to

unaccountable, unchecked and unabashed

forms of authoritarian corporate and state

con­trol.

As a result of the triumph of corporate

power over democratic values - made

visible recently in the Citizens Unlimited

Supreme Court case that eliminated all

controls on corporate spending on political

campaigns - the authority of the state is

now used to de­fend the market and

powerful financial interests while

exercising a disciplinary force over the rest

of society. Lending muscle to cor­porate

initiatives, the state becomes largely

responsible for man­aging and expanding

mechanisms of control, containment and

punishment over a vast number of public

institutions. As the soci­al contract comes

under sustained attack, the model of the

prison emerges as a core institution and

mode of governance under the neoliberal

state. Agencies and services that once

offered relief and hope to the

disadvantaged are being replaced with a

police presence and other elements of the

criminal justice system.

The list of casualties in the war being

waged against democracy is long. We are

witnessing the ongoing privatization of

public schools, health care, prisons,

transportation, the military, public

airwaves, public lands, and other crucial

elements of the com­mons along with the

undermining of our most basic civil

liberties. The bridges between public and

private life are being dismantled, while the

market - with its disregard for the complex

web of sys­temic forces that bear down on

people's lives, not to mention its disregard

for human life itself - becomes the

template for struc­turing all social

relations.

People who were once viewed as facing

dire problems in need of state intervention

and social protection are now seen as a

pro­blem threatening society. This

becomes clear when the war on poverty is

transformed into a war against the poor,

when the plight of the homeless is defined

less as a political and economic issue in

need of social reform than as a matter of

law and order, or when the government

budgets for prison construction eclipse

budgets for higher education. Poor

minority youth, immigrants, and other

disposable populations now become the

flash point that collapses moral and

political taxonomies in the face of a state-

grown disciplinary apparatus. Indeed, the

transformation of the social state into the

corporate-controlled punishing state is

made startlingly clear when young people,

to paraphrase W.E.B. DuBois, become

problem people rather than people who

face pro­blems. Already disenfranchised

by virtue of their age, young peo­ple are

under assault today in ways that are

entirely new because they now face a

world that is far more dangerous than at

any other time in recent history. While

dystopian fears about youth have perhaps

always existed, they have intensified since

the events of 9/11, as has the public's

understanding of youth as an unruly and

unpredictable threat to law and order. This

is made obvious by the many "get tough"

policies that now render young people as

criminals, while depriving them of basic

health care, education and social services.

Punishment and fear have replaced

compassion and social responsibility as the

most important modalities mediating the

relationship of youth to the larger social

order. As anthropologist Alain Bertho

points out, when war and the

criminalization of social problems become

a mode of gover­nance, "Youth is no

longer considered the world's future, but as

a threat to its present. [For] youth, there is

no longer any political discourse except

for a disciplinary one."(2) I now want to

say something about my own youth as a

measure against which to address the

problems many young people face today.

Memories of Youth

Beneath the abstract codifying of youth

around the discourses of law, medicine,

psychology, employment, education and

market­ing statistics, there is the lived

experience of being young. For me, youth

invokes a repository of memories fueled

by my own journey as a young person

through an adult world which largely

seemed to be in the way, a world held

together by a web of discip­linary

practices and restrictions that appeared at

the time more oppressive than liberating.

Dreams for young people living in my

Smith Hill neighborhood in Providence,

Rhode Island, were con­tained within a

limited number of sites, all of which

occupied an outlaw status in the adult

world: the inner-city basketball court

located in a housing project, which

promised danger and fierce competition;

the streets on which adults and youth

collided as the police and parole officers

harassed us endlessly. Lacking the security

of a middle-class childhood, my friends

and I seemed sus­pended in a society that

neither accorded us a voice nor

guaran­teed economic independence.

Identity didn't come easy in my

neighborhood. It was painfully clear to all

of us that our identities were constructed

out of daily battles waged around

masculinity, the ability to mediate a terrain

fraught with violence and the need to find

an anchor through which to negotiate a

culture in which life was fast and short-

lived. I grew up amid the motion and force

of mostly white and black working-class

male bodies - bodies asserting their

physical strength as one of the few

resour­ces we had control over. Job or no

job, one forever felt the prima­cy of the

body: the body flying through the rarefied

air of the neighborhood gym in a kind of

sleek and stylized performance; the body

furtive and cool, existing on the margins of

society filled with the possibility of instant

pleasure and relief, or tense and

anticipating the danger and risk; the body

bent by the weight of grueling labor.

Both my race and class positioned me in

turf wars marked by street codes that were

both feared and respected. Racism ran

deep in that neighborhood and no one was

left untouched by it. But identities are

always in transit: they mutate, change and

often become more complicated as a result

of chance encounters, traumatic events, or

unexpected collisions. At the age of eight,

I became a shoeshine boy and staked out a

route populated by the city's black and

white nightclubs. On Thursday, Friday and

Satur­day nights I started my route about

7:00 PM and got home around 12:00 AM.

I loved going into the Celebrity Club and

other bars, watching the adults dance,

drink and steal furtive glances from each

other. Most of all I loved the music. Billie

Holiday, Fats Domino, Dinah Washington,

Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers and

Little Richard played in the background

against the sounds of glasses clinking and

men and women talking - talking as if their

only chance to come alive was compressed

into the time they spent in the club.

Whenever I finished my route, I had to

navigate a dangerous set of streets to get

back home. I learned how to talk,

negotiate and defend myself along that

route. I was too skinny as a kid to be a

tough guy; I had to learn a street code that

was funny but smart, fast but not insulting.

That's when my body and head started

working together. While I didn't realize it

at the time, I was learning fast that the

working of the intellect was as powerful a

weapon as the body itself. In spite of what

I learned in that neighborhood, about the

virtues of a kind of militant masculinity, I

had to forge a different understanding

about the relationship between my body

and mind - one in which the body was

only one resource for surviving.

I saw a lot in that neighborhood and I

couldn't seem to learn en­ough to make

sense of it or escape its pull. Peer groups

formed early and kids ruptured all but the

most necessary forms of de­pendence on

their parents at a very young age. I really

only saw my parents when I went home to

eat or sleep. All of the youth left home too

early to notice the loss until later in life

when we be­came adults or parents

ourselves. Home was neither a source of

comfort nor a respite from the outside

world. The neighborhood was my real

home and my friends provided the

sanctuary for talk and security along with

a cool indifference - none of us looked

forward to the future. And as for the

present, it was all we had. It made little

sense to invest in a future that for many of

my friends either ended too early or

pointed to the dreaded possibility of

be­coming an adult, which usually meant

working in a boring job by day and

hanging out in the local bar by night.

My youth was lived through class

formations that I felt were lar­gely viewed

by others as an outlaw culture. Schools,

hospitals, community centers and, surely.

middle-class social spaces in­terpreted us

as outsiders, alien and other because we

were from the wrong class and had the

wrong kind of cultural capital. As

working-class youth, we were defined

through our deficits. Class marked us as

poor, inferior, linguistically inadequate

and often dangerous. Our bodies were

more valued than our minds and the only

way to survive was to deny one's voice,

experience and loca­tion as working-class

youth. We were feared and denigrated

more than we were affirmed, and the

reality of being part of an outlaw culture

penetrated us with an awareness that we

could hardly navigate critically or

theoretically, but felt in every fiber of our

being.

We lacked the political vocabulary and

insight that would have en­abled us to see

the contradiction among the brutal racism,

viol­ence and sexism that marked our lives

and our constant at­tempts to push against

the grain by investing in the pleasures of

body, the warmth of solidarity and the

appropriation of neighbor­hood spaces as

outlaw publics. As kids, we were border

crossers and had to learn to negotiate the

power, violence and cruelty of the

dominant culture through our own lived

histories, restricted languages and narrow

cultural experiences. Recognizing our

fugitive status in all of the dominant

institutions in which we found ourselves,

we were suspicious and sometimes

vengeful of what we didn't have or how

we were left out of the representa­tions

that seemed to define American youth in

the 1950s and early 1960s. We listened to

Etta James and hated both the music of Pat

Boone and the cultural capital that for us

was synonymous with golf, tennis and

prep schools. We lost ourselves in the

gritti­ness of working-class neighborhood

gyms, abandoned cars and street corners

that offered a haven for escape, but also

invited police surveillance and brutality.

Being part of an outlaw culture meant that

we lived almost exclusively on the

margins of a life that was not of our

choosing. We bore witness to the future

only to escape into the present, and the

present never stopped pulsat­ing. Like

most marginalized youth cultures, we were

time bound. The memory work, for me,

would have to come later. But when it

came, it offered me a newfound

appreciation of what I learned in those

neighborhoods about solidarity, trust,

friendship, sacrifice and, most of all,

individual and collective struggle.

I eventually left my neighborhood, but it

was nothing less than a historical accident

that allowed me to leave. I never took the

re­quisite tests to apply to a four-year

college. When high school graduation

came around, I was offered a basketball

scholarship to a junior college in

Worcester, Massachusetts. After violating

too many rules and drinking more than I

should have, I left school and went back to

my old neighborhood hangouts. But my

friends' lives had already changed. Their

youth had left them and they now had

families and lousy jobs and spent a lot of

time in the neighborhood bar, waiting for a

quick hit at the racetrack or the promise of

a good disability scheme. After working

for two years at odd jobs, I managed to

play in a widely publicized basketball

tournament and did well enough to attract

the attention of a few coaches who tried to

recruit me. Following their advice, I took

the SATs and scored high enough to

qualify for entrance into a small college in

Maine that offered me a basketball

scholarship. While in school, I took on a

couple of jobs to help finance my

education and eventually graduated with a

teaching degree in secondary education.

In the grand scheme of things, I was lucky;

I experienced my youth at a time when

post-war America was imbued with

optim­ism. Privileged by gender and race,

I was able to make my way out of an

existence that otherwise would have been

bound by class and material deprivation.

Given the growing gap between the rich

and the poor, a growing culture of cruelty

and the dis­mantling of the social state, I

don't believe youth today will have the

same opportunities I had, although

undoubtedly they will have struggles

similar to mine and much more.

Today's young people inhabit an age of

unprecedented symbolic, material and

institutional violence - an age of grotesque

irres­ponsibility, unrestrained greed and

unchecked individualism. The crisis of

youth is a crisis rooted in society's loss of

history, memo­ry and ethical responsibility

- something I have tried to counter by

bearing witness to my own youth, not

simply as a personal nar­rative, but as a

mode of analysis that seeks to connect

private troubles to larger social issues. I

believe that the practices of wit­nessing

and testimony lie at the heart of what it

means to teach and to learn. The practices

of witnessing and testimony mean

speaking and listening to the stories of

others as part of both an ethical response

to the narratives of the past and a broader

re­sponsibility to engage the present.

Without them, we lose the capacity both to

reflect upon our own shifting locations,

including how our past actions implicate

us, and to act upon those reflec­tions. We

lose an important locus for identification

through which ourselves and others can

begin to understand the complexity and

significance of the diverse conditions that

have shaped our in­dividual and collective

histories.

Today, besides a growing inability to

translate private matters into public

concerns, what is also being lost is the

very idea of the public good, the notion of

connecting learning to social change and

developing modes of civic courage infused

by the principles of soci­al justice. Under

the regime of a ruthless economic

Darwinism, which emphasizes a survival-

of-the- fittest ethic, concepts and practices

of community and solidarity have been

replaced by a world of cutthroat politics,

financial greed, media spectacles and a

rabid consumerism. It seems that the

eminent sociologist Zyg­munt Bauman is

right in claiming, "Visions have nowadays

fallen into disrepute and we tend to be

proud of what we should be as­hamed of."

Politics has become an extension of war,

just as the spectacle of extreme violence

increasingly shapes both popular culture

and a culture of cruelty that promotes

shared fears and an escape from any sense

of social responsibility toward others. How

else to explain a recent incident in which

rural Tennessee firefighters "looked on as

a house burned because the family who

lived in it had not paid the $75 annual fire-

protection fee."(3) The firemen joked and

laughed as the owner of the home offered

to pay the fee while desperately pleading

for their help. The home was destroyed

along with three dogs trapped inside the

burning trailer. Incidents such as this are

not lost on young people today, who learn

quickly that their fate is solely a matter of

individual survival, as if controlled by a

natural law of sorts that has more to do

with survival instincts than with modes of

collective reasoning, social solidarity and

the formation of a sustainable democratic

society. "Reality TV's" mantra of "war of

all against all" brings home the lesson that

punishment is the norm and reward the

ex­ception. Unfortunately, it no longer

mimics reality; it is the new reality.

The War Against Youth

The intensifying assault on young people

today can be un­derstood through the

related concepts of "soft war" and "hard

war." The idea of soft war considers the

changing conditions of youth within the

relentless expansion of a global market

society. Partnered with a massive

advertising machinery, the soft war

tar­gets all children and youth, devaluing

them by treating them as yet another

"market" to be commodified and exploited

and con­scripting them into the system

through creating a new generation of

consuming subjects. This low intensity

war is waged by a variety of corporate

institutions through the educational force

of a culture that commercializes every

aspect of kids' lives, using the Internet and

various social networks along with the

new media technologies such as cell

phones to immerse young people in the

world of mass consumption in ways more

direct and expan­sive than anything we

have seen in the past. The influence of the

new screen and electronic culture on

young peoples' habits is dis­turbing. For

instance, a recent study by the Kaiser

Family Foun­dation found that young

people ages 8 to 18 now spend more than

seven and a half hours a day with smart

phones, computers, televisions, and other

electronic devices, compared with less

than six and a half hours five years ago.(4)

When you add the addition­al time youth

spend texting, talking on their cell phones

and doing multiple tasks at once, such as

"watching TV while updat­ing Facebook -

the number rises to 11 hours of total media

con­tent each day."(5) There is a greater

risk here than what seems to be emerging

as a new form of attention deficit disorder,

one in which youth avoid the time

necessary for thoughtful analysis and

engaged modes of reading. There is also

the issue of how this media is conscripting

an entire generation into a world of

con­sumerism in which commodities and

brand loyalty become the most important

markers of identity and primary

frameworks for mediating one's

relationship to the world.

As public spheres are replaced by

commercialized spheres and public time is

replaced by corporate time through the use

of fast-paced technologies that penetrate

every aspect of kids' lives, many young

people are commercially carpet bombed

endlessly and feel like they are caught on a

consumerist treadmill that speeds up and

never slows down. The stark reality here is

that the corporate media are being used to

reshape kids' identities into that of

consumers rather than citizens. And as

Bauman points out, "life and politics are

now shaped after the likeness of the means

and objects of consumption." Young

people are not being invited to participate

in a dialogue of what ails society; they are

bombarded with images and messages that

multimedia cor­porate giants want them to

see and hear - and go to the great lengths

and expense conducting all kinds of

marketing and psyc­hological research to

ensure that kids will accept them. Kids

may think they are immune to the

incessant call to "buy, buy, buy" and to

think only about "me, me, me," but what is

actually hap­pening is a selective

elimination and reordering of the possible

modes of political, social and ethical

vocabularies made available to youth.

Corporations have hit gold with the new

media and can inundate young people

directly with their market-driven values,

desires and identities, all of which fly

under the radar, escaping the watchful

eyes and interventions of concerned

parents and other adults.

The hard war is more serious and

dangerous for certain young people and

refers to the harshest elements of a

growing crime-control complex that

increasingly governs poor minority youth

through a logic of punishment,

surveillance and control. The youth

targeted by its punitive measures are often

the young peo­ple who, like their parents,

are viewed as failed consumers and can

only afford to live on the margins of a

commercial culture of excess that eagerly

takes in anybody with money, resources

and leisure time to spare. Or they are

young people considered to be

troublesome and often disposable by virtue

of their ethnicity, race and class. The

imprint of the youth crime-control

complex can be traced in the increasingly

popular practice of organizing schools

through disciplinary practices that subject

students to con­stant surveillance through

high-tech security devices, while

im­posing on them harsh and often

thoughtless zero-tolerance poli­cies that

closely resemble the culture of the

criminal justice sys­tem. In this instance,

the corporate state is transformed into a

punishing state and vulnerable segments of

the youth population become the object of

a new mode of governance based on the

crudest forms of disciplinary control.

Poor minority youth are not just excluded

from "the American dream," but become

utterly redundant and disposable, waste

pro­ducts of a society that no longer

considers them of any value. Such youth,

already facing forms of racial- and class-

based exclus­ion, now experience a kind

of social death as they are pushed out of

schools, denied job training opportunities,

subjected to rigorous modes of

surveillance and criminal sanctions and

viewed less as chronically disadvantaged

than as flawed consumers and civic felons.

No longer tracked into either high- or low-

achievement classes, many of these youth

are now tracked right out of school into the

juvenile criminal justice system. Under

such circumstan­ces, matters of survival

and disposability become central to how

we think about and imagine not just

politics, but the everyday ex­istence of

poor white, Aboriginal, immigrant and

minority youth. Too many young people

are not completing high school, but are

in­stead bearing the brunt of a system that

leaves them uneducated and jobless, and

ultimately offers them one of the few

options available for people who no longer

have available roles to play as producers

or consumers - either poverty or prison.

Not only have social safety nets and

protections unraveled in the last 30 years,

but the suffering and hardships many

children face have been greatly amplified

by both the economic crisis and the

austerity policies that are being currently

implemented, with lit­tle justification, in

the current historical moment. What is

happen­ing among the marginalized and

socially disadvantaged people in the

United States should serve as a dire

warning to policymakers. Current statistics

paint a bleak picture for young people in

the United States: 1. 5 million are

unemployed, which marks a 17-year high;

12.5 million are without food; and a

number of unsettl­ing reports indicate that

the number of children living in poverty

will rise to "nearly 17 million by the end

of the [2011]."(6) The National

Association for the Education of Homeless

Children and Youth reported that there are

over a million homeless students in the

United States.(7) A 2009 study counted

nearly 6. 2 million high school

dropouts.(8) Increasingly, kids are forced

to inhabit a rough world where childhood

is nonexistent, crushed under the heavy

material and existential burdens they are

forced to bear.

In what amounts to a national disgrace,

one out of every five American children

lives in poverty. At the same time, 60

percent of all corporations paid no taxes

last year. These figures become even more

alarming when analyzed through the harsh

realities of economic deprivation and

persistent racial disadvantage. Nearly half

of all US children and 90 percent of black

youngsters will be on food stamps at some

point during childhood.(9) Nearly one in

every ten male high school dropouts in the

United States is in either jail or juvenile

detention.(10) For African-American male

youth, the incarceration rate jumps to one

in four high school dropouts ending up in

prison.(11) What becomes clear is that

soci­al marginalization, poverty, low

levels of education and high

un­employment are increasingly driving

staggering incarceration rates for young

people, with some youth clearly being

affected more than others. This leads us

back to the youth crime-control complex.

The Youth Crime-Control Complex

As social problems are increasingly

criminalized and the social state is

replaced by the punishing state, young

people are often subjected to intolerable

conditions that inflict irreparable harm on

their minds and bodies. Subject to a

coming-of-age crisis mar­ked by an ever

expanding police order with its paranoid

machine­ry of security, containment and

criminalization, many youth mar­ginalized

by class and race have become the most

visible symbol indicting a society that

seems incapable of thinking critically

about education, justice and democracy.

Within the narrow regist­ers of

punishment and crime management, there

is no political or moral vocabulary for

either recognizing the systemic economic,

social and educational problems that

young people face or for addressing what

it means for society to invest seriously in

the fu­ture of young people, especially

poor minority youth. Instead of being

viewed as impoverished, minority youth

are seen as lazy and shiftless; instead of

being understood in terms of how badly

they are served by failing schools, many

poor minority youth are labeled as

uneducable and pushed out of schools.

Against the idealistic rhetoric of a

government that claims it venerates young

people, lies the reality of a society that

increasingly views youth through the optic

of law and order, a society that appears all

too willing to treat youth as criminals and,

when necessary, make them "disappear"

into the farthest reaches of the carceral

state. Under such circumstances, the

administration of schools and soci­al

services has given way to modes of

confinement whose pur­pose is to ensure

"custody and control."(12)

One consequence of the punishment focus

of these policies is the elimination of

intervention programs, which has the

effect of in­creasing the number of youth

in prisons and keeping them there for

longer periods of time. And when these

young people are placed in adult prisons,

the outcome is even more disturbing.

Youth in adult prisons are "five times as

likely to be raped, twice as likely to be

beaten and eight times [more] likely to

commit suicide than adults in the adult

prison system."(13) Juvenile de­tention

centers are not much better. According to

Professor Barry Feld, "The daily reality of

juveniles confined in many 'treat­ment'

facilities is one of violence, predatory

behavior and punitive incarceration."(14)

In some juvenile facilities, young people

are abused and tortured in a manner

associated with the treatment detainees

have received at Abu Ghraib,

Guantanamo, and vari­ous detention

centers in Afghanistan and Iraq. For

example, the United States Department of

Justice reported in 2009 that childr­en at

four juvenile detention centers in New

York were often severely abused and

beaten, leading to concussions, broken

teeth and bone fractures.(15) The use of

excessive force by the staff was

indiscriminate and ruthlessly applied.

According to one re­port, "Anything from

sneaking an extra cookie to initiating a

fistfight may result in full prone restraint

with handcuffs."(16) In one instance, a

boy simply glared at a staff member and

for that infraction was put into a sitting

restraint. His arms were pulled behind his

back with such force that his collarbone,

which had been previously injured, was

broken.

Alarming physical and psychological

violence directed at youth is also

increasingly visible in many public

schools across the United States. As the

logic of the market and crime control

frame a number of school policies,

students are now subjected to zero-

tolerance rules that are used primarily to

humiliate, punish, re­press and exclude

them.(17) For instance, Porsche, a fourth-

grade student at a Philadelphia,

Pennsylvania, elementary school, was

yanked out of class, handcuffed, taken to

the police station and held for eight hours

for bringing a pair of eight-inch scissors to

school. She had been using the scissors to

work on a school pro­ject at home. School

district officials acknowledged that the girl

was not using the scissors as a weapon or

threatening anyone with them, but scissors

qualified as a potential weapon under state

law. In another widely distributed news

story accompanied by a disturbing video, a

school-based police officer brutally beat a

15-year-old special needs student because

his shirt was not tuc­ked into his pants.(18)

What are we to make of a society that

al­lows the police to come into a school

and arrest, handcuff and haul off a 12-

year-old student for doodling on her desk?

Even worse, where is the public outrage

over a school system that al­lows a five-

year-old kindergarten pupil to be

handcuffed and sent to a hospital

psychiatric ward for being unruly in a

classroom?

What does it mean when an 11-year-old

autistic and cognitively impaired child is

repeatedly abused in school by both

teachers and security guards?(19) Where is

the public outrage when two police

officers called to a day care center in

central Indiana to han­dle an unruly ten-

year-old decide to taser the child and slap

him in the mouth - this following another

widely reported incident in which a police

officer in Arkansas used a stun gun to

control an al­legedly out-of-control ten-

year-old girl? One public response came

from Steve Tuttle, a spokesman for Taser

International Inc. , who insisted that a

"Stun gun can be safely used on

childr­en."(20) Sadly, this is but a small

sampling of the ways in which children are

being punished instead of educated in

American schools, especially inner-city

schools. All of these examples point to the

growing disregard American society has

for young people and the number of

institutions willing to employ a crime-and-

punishment mentality that constitutes not

only a crisis of politics, but the emergence

of new politics of educating and governing

through crime. The culture of punishment

that now permeates American schools not

only derails the project of critical

education and democracy in a number of

ways, but it also makes poor white and

minority youth disposable. This is a

culture that favors rage, anger and

vengeance over compassion, dialogue and

social invest­ments. As the writer Michelle

Brown points out, the punishing state

increasingly provides the framing logic not

simply for urban schools, but also "for the

sites and centers of middle-class life -

of­fices, workplaces, universities, medical

centers, housing and air­ports. "

As the culture of fear, crime and

repression embraces public schools, the

culture of schooling takes on the obscene

and violent contours one associates with

the "all [too] familiar procedures of

efficient prison management,"(22)

including unannounced locker searches,

armed police patrolling the corridors,

mandatory drug testing and the ever

present body of lockdown security devices

such as metal detectors, X-ray machines,

surveillance cameras and other

technologies of fear and control. The

sociologist Randall Beger is right in

suggesting that the new "security culture

in pub­lic schools [has] turned them into

'learning prisons' where the students

unwittingly become 'guinea pigs' to test

the latest secur­ity devices."(23) As

schools increasingly resemble zones of

aban­donment, trust and respect give way

to fear, disdain and suspic­ion, creating an

environment in which critical education

withers. Unfortunately, policies and

practices designed to foster exclusion and

mete out shame and humiliation make it

easier for young peo­ple to look upon their

society and their futures with suspicion

and despair, rather than anticipation and

hope.

What is horrifying about the plight of

youth today is not just the severity of

deprivations and violence they experience

daily, but also how they have been forced

to view the world and redefine the nature

of their own childhood within the borders

of hopeless­ness, cruelty and despair.

There is little sense of a hopeful future

lying just beyond highly policed spaces of

containment. An entire generation of youth

will not have access to decent jobs, the

material comforts or the security available

to previous genera­tions. These children

are a new generation of youth who have to

think, act and talk like adults; worry about

their families, which may be headed by a

single parent or two out of work and

search­ing for a job; wonder how they are

going to get the money to buy food and

how long it will take to see a doctor in

case of illness. These children are no

longer confined to so-called ghettoes. As

the burgeoning landscapes of poverty and

despair increasingly find expression in our

cities, suburbs and rural areas, these

childr­en make their presence felt - they

are too many to ignore or hide away in the

usually sequestered and invisible spaces of

disposabil­ity. They constitute a new and

more unsettling scene of suffering, one

that reveals not only the vast and

destabilizing inequalities in our economic

landscape, but also portends a future that

has no purchase on the hope that

characterizes a vibrant democracy.

Defending Youth and Democracy in the

21st Century

At this moment in history, it is more

necessary than ever to re­gister youth as a

central theoretical, moral and political

concern. American society has been

punishing children for a long time and it is

getting worse. Injustice and inequality

have a long legacy in the United States and

its most punishing modes and lethal effects

have been largely directed against

immigrant and minority childr­en. Today,

youth even as a category of thought seems

to be re­moved from the inventory of

social concerns and the list of cheris­hed

public assets. Increasingly viewed as yet

another social burd­en, youth are no longer

included in a discourse about the promise

of a better future. Instead, they are now

considered part of a dis­posable population

whose presence threatens to recall

repressed collective memories of adult

responsibility. The shameful condi­tion of

minority youth exposes not only their

unbearable vic­timization, but also those

larger social and political forces that speak

to the callous hardening of a society that

actively produces the needless suffering

and death of its children. The moral

nihil­ism of a market society, the move

from a welfare to a warfare state, the

growing poverty rates, the resegregation of

schools by race and class, the persistent

dumbing down of learning as a re­sult of

high-stakes testing, the attack on teachers'

bargaining rights, the collapse of education

into training and the rise of a per­nicious

corporate state work together to numb us

to the suffering of others, especially

children.

The deteriorating state of youth may be the

most serious chal­lenge facing educators,

social workers, youth workers, and others

in the 21st century. It is a struggle that

demands a new un­derstanding of politics,

one that is infused not only with the

lan­guage of critique, but also the

discourse of possibility. It is a struggle that

demands that we think beyond the given,

imagine the unimaginable and combine the

lofty ideals of democracy with a

willingness to fight for its realization. But

this is not a fight we can win through

individual struggles or fragmented

political move­ments. It demands new

modes of solidarity, new political

or­ganizations and a powerful social

movement capable of uniting di­verse

political interests and groups. It is a

struggle that is as educational as it is

political. It is also a struggle that is as

necessa­ry as it is urgent. And the struggle

for the future of young people must be at

the center of this struggle.

One way of addressing our collapsing

intellectual and moral vis­ions regarding

young people is to imagine those policies,

values, opportunities and social relations

that both invoke adult respon­sibility and

reinforce the ethical imperative to provide

young peo­ple, especially those

marginalized by race and class, with the

economic, social and educational

conditions that make life livable and the

future sustainable. Clearly, the issue at

stake here is not a one-off program or

temporary fix, but real structural reforms.

At the very least, as legal scholar Dorothy

Roberts has argued, this suggests fighting

for a child welfare system that would

re­duce "family poverty by increasing the

minimum wage," and ad­vocating for

legislation that would provide "a

guaranteed in­come ... high-quality

subsidized child care, preschool education

and paid parental leaves for all

families."(24) Young people need a

federally funded job creation program and

wage subsidies that would provide year-

round employment for out-of-school youth

and summer jobs that target in-school low-

income youth. Public and higher

education, increasingly shaped by

corporate and in­strumental values, must

be reclaimed as democratic public spheres

committed to teaching young people about

how to govern rather than merely be

governed or simply be trained for the

workplace. And they must be funded with

the same parity as we fund national

defense, and they should be affordable for

all students, but especially for those

consigned to the margins of society.

We need to get security forces out of

schools, reduce spending for prisons and

wars and hire more teachers, support staff

and com­munity people in order to

eliminate the school-to-prison pipeline. To

make life livable for young people and

others, basic supports for everybody must

be guaranteed, including provisions for

af­fordable housing. But, of course, none

of this will take place unless the

institutions, social relations and values that

legitimate and re­produce current levels of

inequality, power and human suffering

under the present structure of casino

capitalism are dismantled. The widening

gap between the rich and the poor has to

be addres­sed if young people are to have

a viable future.

Clearly, any society that endorses market

principles as a template for shaping all

aspects of social life and cares more about

the accumulation of capital than it does

about the fate of young people is in

trouble. Next to the needs of the market

place, life has become cheap, if not

irrelevant. We have lived too long with

governments and institutions that make

lofty claims to de­mocracy, while

selectively punishing those considered

expend­able - in prisons, public schools,

foster care institutions and urban slums.

If the crucial problems facing young

people are to be taken seriously, then the

political, economic and institutional

conditions that both legitimate and sustain

a shameful attack on youth have to be

made visible, open to challenge and

transformed. This can only happen by

refusing the social amnesia that coincides

with ob­sessive individualism and utterly

rejecting the equation of a free-market

system with democracy. We need to

imagine more democ­ratic forms of

agency and the public spheres capable of

producing them. We need to collectively

struggle to create the formative cul­tures

necessary for young people to become

critical thinkers, cap­able of putting

existing institutions into question, holding

power accountable and struggling to

change society when necessary. That is,

we need a generation of young people who

are both educated to struggle for the

promises of a democracy to come and

capable of active participation in the

process of governing. Such a struggle

demands that we think beyond the given,

im­agine the unimaginable and combine

the lofty ideals of democracy with a

willingness to fight for its realization. But

such a fight de­mands new modes of

solidarity, new political organizations and

a powerful social movement capable of

uniting diverse political in­terests and

groups. It is a struggle that is as

educational as it is political. It is also a

struggle that is as necessary as it is urgent.

We may live in dark times, as Hannah

Arendt reminds us, but his­tory is open,

and the space of the possible is larger than

the one currently on display.

Footnotes:

1. Some useful sources on neoliberalism

include: Lisa Duggan, "The Twilight of

Equality" (Boston: Beacon Press, 2003);

David Harvey, "A Brief History of

Neoliberalism" (New York: Oxford

University Press, 2005); Wendy Brown,

"Edgework: Critical Es­says on

Knowledge and Politics" (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 2005); Alfredo

Saad-Filho and Deborah Johnston, eds.

"Neoliberalism: A Critical Reader"

(London: Pluto Press, 2005); Neil Smith,

"The Endgame of Globalization" (New

York: Rout­ledge, 2005); Aihwa Ong,

"Neoliberalism as Exception: Muta­tions

in Citizenship and Sovereignty" (Durham:

Duke University Press, 2006); Randy

Martin, "An Empire of Indifference:

American War and the Financial Logic of

Risk Management" (Dur­ham: Duke

University Press, 2007); Naomi Klein,

"The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster

Capitalism" (New York: Knopf, 2007);

Henry A. Giroux, "Against the Terror of

Neoliberal­ism" (Boulder: Paradigm

Publishers, 2008); David Harvey, The

Enigma of Capital and the Crisis of

Capitalism (New York: Oxford University

Press, 2010) and Gerard Dumenil and

Dominique Levy, "The Crisis of

Neoliberalism" (Cambridge: Harvard

Uni­versity Press, 2011).

2. Quoted in Jean-Marie Durand, "For

Youth: A Disciplinary Dis­course Only,"

Truthout (November 15, 2009),

translation, Leslie Thatcher. Online here.

3. Adam Cohen, "Should Tennessee

Fireman Have Let the House Burn?" Time

with CNN (October 13, 2010).

4. Tamar Lewin, "If Your Kids Are

Awake, They're Probably On­line," New

York Times (January 20, 2010), p. A1.

5. C. Christine, "Kaiser Study: Kids 8 to

18 Spend More Than Seven Hours a Day

With Media," Spotlight on Digital Media

and Learning: MacArthur Foundation

(January 21, 2010). Online here.

6. Quoted in Bob Herbert, "Children in

Peril," New York Times (April 21, 2009),

p. A25.

7. Erik Eckholm, "Surge in Homeless

Pupils Strains Schools," New York Times

(September 6, 2009), p. A1.

8. Center for Labor Market Studies at

Northeastern University, "Left Behind in

America: The Nation's Dropout Crisis"

(May 5, 2009). Online here.

9. Lindsey Tanner, "Half of US Kids Will

Get Food Stamps, Study Says," Chicago

Tribune (November 2, 2009), online here.

10. Andrew Sum et al., "The

Consequences of Dropping Out of High

School: Joblessness and Jailing for High

School Dropouts and the High Cost for

Taxpayers" (Boston: Center for Labor

Mar­ket Studies, Northeastern University,

October 2009). Online here.

11. Ibid.

12. Zygmunt Bauman, "Wasted Lives"

(London: Polity Press, 2004), p.82.

13. Quoted in Evelyn Nieves, "California

Proposal Toughens Penalties for Young

Criminals," New York Times (March 6,

2000), pp.A1, A15.

14. Barry Feld, "Criminalizing the

American Juvenile Court," Crime and

Justice 17 (1993), p.251.

15. US Department of Justice, "Report:

Investigation of the Lans­ing Residential

Center," Louis Gossett, Jr.Residential

Center, Tryon Residential Center and

Tryon Girls Center (Washington, DC: US

Government, 2009). Online here.

16. US Department of Justice, "Report:

Investigation of the Lans­ing Residential

Center." See also Nicholas Confessore, "4

Youth Prisons in New York Used

Excessive Force," New York Times

(August 25, 2009), p.A1.

17. For an extensive treatment of zero

tolerance laws and the militarization of

schools, see Christopher Robbins,

"Expelling Hope: The Assault on Youth

and the Militarization of School­ing"

(Albany: SUNY Press, 2008); and

Kenneth Saltman and David Gabbard,

eds., "Education as Enforcement: The

Militariza­tion and Corporatization of

Schools" (New York: Routledge, 2003).

18. Henry A.Giroux, "Brutalizing Kids:

Painful Lessons in the Pedagogy of School

Violence," Truthout (October 8, 2009).

On­line here.

19. Beth Germano, "Worcester Teacher

Accused of Abusing Autis­tic Boy," The

Autism News (March 23, 2010). Online

here.

20 .Carly Everson, "Ind.Officer Uses Stun

Gun on Unruly 10-Year old," AP News

(April 3, 2010). Online here.

21. Jonathan Simon, "Governing Through

Crime: How the War on Crime

Transformed American Democracy and

Created a Cul­ture of Fear" (New York:

Oxford University Press, 2007), p.5.

22. Zygmunt Bauman, "Wasted Lives"

(London: Polity Press, 2004), p.82.

23. Beger, "Expansion of Police Power,"

p.120.

24. Dorothy Roberts, "Shattered Bonds:

The Color of Child Wel­fare" (New York:

Basic Civitas Books, 2008), p.268.

SWAT Team Mania: The War Against the

American Citizen By John W. Whitehead

6/13/2011 “He [a federal agent] had his knee on my

back and I had no idea why they were

there.”--Anthony Wright, victim of a Dept.

of Education SWAT team raid

The militarization of American police--no

doubt a blowback effect of the military

empire--has become an unfortunate part of

American life. In fact, it says something

about our reliance on the military that

federal agencies having nothing

whatsoever to do with national defense

now see the need for their own

paramilitary units. Among those federal

agencies laying claim to their own law

enforcement divisions are the State

Department, Department of Education,

Department of Energy, U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service, and the National Park

Service, to name just a few. These

agencies have secured the services of fully

armed agents--often in SWAT team attire-

-through a typical bureaucratic sleight-of-

hand provision allowing for the creation of

Offices of Inspectors General (OIG). Each

OIG office is supposedly charged with not

only auditing their particular agency‘s

actions but also uncovering possible

misconduct, waste, fraud, theft, or certain

types of criminal activity by individuals or

groups related to the agency‘s operation.

At present, there are 73 such OIG offices

in the federal government that, at times,

perpetuate a police state aura about them.

For example, it was heavily armed agents

from one such OIG office, working under

the auspices of the Department of

Education, who forced their way into the

home of a California man, handcuffed

him, and placed his three children (ages 3,

7, and 11) in a squad car while they

conducted a search of his home. This

federal SWAT team raid, which is

essentially what it was, on the home of

Anthony Wright on Tuesday, June 7,

2011, was allegedly intended to ferret out

information on Wright‘s estranged wife,

Michelle, who no longer lives with him

and who was suspected of financial aid

fraud (early news reports characterized the

purpose of the raid as being over

Michelle‘s delinquent student loans).

According to Wright, he was awakened at

6 am by the sound of agents battering

down his door and, upon descending the

stairs, was immediately subdued by police.

One neighbor actually witnessed the team

of armed agents surround the house and,

after forcing entry, they ―dragged [Wright]

out in his boxer shorts, threw him to the

ground and handcuffed him.‖

This is not the first time a SWAT team has

been employed in non-violent scenarios.

Nationwide, SWAT teams have been

employed to address an astonishingly

trivial array of criminal activity or mere

community nuisances: angry dogs,

domestic disputes, improper paperwork

filed by an orchid farmer, and

misdemeanor marijuana possession, to

give a brief sampling. In some instances,

SWAT teams are even employed, in full

armament, to perform routine patrols.

How did we allow ourselves to travel so

far down the road to a police state? While

we are now grappling with a power-

hungry police state at the federal level, the

militarization of domestic American law

enforcement is largely the result of the

militarization of local police forces, which

are increasingly militaristic in their

uniforms, weaponry, language, training,

and tactics and have come to rely on

SWAT teams in matters that once could

have been satisfactorily performed by

traditional civilian officers. Even so, this

transformation of law enforcement at the

local level could not have been possible

without substantial assistance from on

high.

Frequently justified as vital tools

necessary to combat terrorism and deal

with rare but extremely dangerous

criminal situations, such as those involving

hostages, SWAT teams--which first

appeared on the scene in California in the

1960s--have now become intrinsic parts of

local law enforcement operations, thanks

in large part to substantial federal

assistance. For example, in 1994, the U.S.

Department of Justice and the Department

of Defense agreed to a memorandum of

understanding that enabled the transfer of

federal military technology to local police

forces. Following the passage of the

Defense Authorization Security Act of

1997, which was intended to accelerate the

transfer of military equipment to domestic

law enforcement departments, local police

acquired military weaponry--gratuitously

or at sharp discounts--at astonishing rates.

Between 1997 and 1999, the agency

created by the Defense Authorization

Security Act conveyed 3.4 million orders

of military equipment to over 11,000 local

police agencies in all 50 states. Not only

did this vast abundance of military

weaponry contribute to a more militarized

police force, but it also helped spur the

creation of SWAT teams in jurisdictions

across the country.

In one of the few quantitative studies on

the subject, criminologist Peter Kraska

found in 1997 that close to 90 percent of

cities with populations exceeding 50,000

and at least 100 sworn officers had at least

one paramilitary unit. In a separate study,

Kraska determined that, as of 1996, 65

percent of towns with populations between

25,000 and 50,000 had a paramilitary unit,

with an additional 8 percent intending to

establish one.

While the frequency of SWAT operations

has increased dramatically in recent years,

jumping from 1,000 to 40,000 raids per

year by 2001, it appears to have less to do

with increases in violent crime and more

to do with law enforcement bureaucracy

and a police state mentality. Indeed,

according to Kraska‘s estimates, 75-80

percent of SWAT callouts are now for

mere warrant service. In some

jurisdictions, SWAT teams are responsible

for servicing 100 percent of all drug

warrants issued. A Maryland study,

conducted in the wake of a botched raid in

2008 that resulted in the mistaken

detainment of Berwyn Heights mayor

Cheye Calvo and the shooting deaths of

his two dogs, corroborates Kraska‘s

findings. According to the study, SWAT

teams are deployed 4.5 times per day in

Maryland with 94 percent of those

deployments being for something as minor

as serving search or arrest warrants. In the

county in which the Calvo raid occurred,

more than 50 percent of SWAT operations

carried out were for misdemeanors or non-

serious felonies.

This overuse of paramilitary forces and

increased reliance on military weaponry

has inevitably resulted in a pervasive

culture of militarism in domestic law

enforcement. Police mimicry of the

military is enhanced by the war-heavy

imagery and metaphors associated with

law enforcement activity: the war on

drugs, the war on crime, etc. Moreover, it

is estimated that 46 percent of paramilitary

units were trained by ―active-duty military

experts in special operations.‖ In turn, the

military mindset adopted by many SWAT

members encourages a tendency to employ

lethal force. After all, soldiers are

authorized to terminate enemy combatants.

As Lawrence Korb, a former official in the

Reagan Administration, put it, soldiers are

―trained to vaporize, not Mirandize.‖

Ironically, despite the fact that SWAT

team members are subject to greater legal

restraints than their counterparts in the

military, they are often less well-trained in

the use of force than are the special ops

soldiers on which they model themselves.

Indeed, SWAT teams frequently fail to

conform to the basic precautions required

in military raids. For instance, after

reading about a drug raid in Missouri, an

army officer currently serving in

Afghanistan commented:

My first thought on reading this story is

this: Most American police SWAT teams

probably have fewer restrictions on

conducting forced entry raids than do US

forces in Afghanistan. For our troops over

here to conduct any kind of forced entry,

day or night, they have to meet one of two

conditions: have a bad guy (or guys) inside

actively shooting at them; or obtain

permission from a 2-star general, who

must be convinced by available

intelligence (evidence) that the person or

persons they‘re after is present at the

location, and that it‘s too dangerous to try

less coercive methods.

Remember, SWAT teams originated as

specialized units dedicated to defusing

extremely sensitive, dangerous situations.

As the role of paramilitary forces has

expanded, however, to include

involvement in nondescript police work

targeting nonviolent suspects, the mere

presence of SWAT units has actually

injected a level of danger and violence into

police-citizen interactions that was not

present as long as these interactions were

handled by traditional civilian officers. In

one drug raid, for instance, an unarmed

pregnant woman was shot as she attempted

to flee the police by climbing out a

window. In another case, the girlfriend of

a drug suspect and her young child

crouched on the floor in obedience to

police instructions during the execution of

a search warrant. One officer proceeded to

shoot the family dogs. His fellow officer,

in another room, mistook the shots for

hostile gunfire and fired blindly into the

room where the defendant crouched,

killing her and wounding her child.

What we are witnessing is an inversion of

the police-civilian relationship. Rather

than compelling police officers to remain

within constitutional bounds as servants of

the people, ordinary Americans are being

placed at the mercy of law enforcement.

This is what happens when paramilitary

forces are used to conduct ordinary

policing operations, such as executing

warrants on nonviolent defendants. Yet

studies indicate that paramilitary raids

frequently result in misdemeanor

convictions. An investigation by Denver‘s

Rocky Mountain News revealed that of the

146 no-knock raids conducted in Denver

in 2000, only 49 resulted in charges. And

only two resulted in prison sentences for

suspects targeted in the raids.

General incompetence, collateral damage

(fatalities, property damage, etc.) and

botched raids tend to go hand in hand with

an overuse of paramilitary forces. In some

cases, officers misread the address on the

warrant. In others, they simply barge into

the wrong house or even the wrong

building. In another subset of cases (such

as the Department of Education raid on

Anthony Wright‘s home), police conduct a

search of a building where the suspect no

longer resides. SWAT teams have even on

occasion conducted multiple, sequential

raids on wrong addresses or executed

search warrants despite the fact that the

suspect is already in police custody. Police

have also raided homes on the basis of

mistaking the presence or scent of legal

substances for drugs. Incredibly, these

substances have included tomatoes,

sunflowers, fish, elderberry bushes, kenaf

plants, hibiscus, and ragweed.

All too often, botched SWAT team raids

have resulted in one tragedy after another

for the residents with little consequences

for law enforcement. Judges tend to afford

extreme levels of deference to police

officers who have mistakenly killed

innocent civilians but do not afford similar

leniency to civilians who have injured

police officers in acts of self-defense.

Even homeowners who mistake officers

for robbers can be sentenced for assault or

murder if they take defensive actions

resulting in harm to police.

And as journalist Radley Balko shows in

his in-depth study of police militarization,

the shock-and-awe tactics utilized by

many SWAT teams only increases the

likelihood that someone will get hurt.

Drug warrants, for instance, are typically

served by paramilitary units late at night or

shortly before dawn. Unfortunately, to the

unsuspecting homeowner--especially in

cases involving mistaken identities or

wrong addresses--a raid can appear to be

nothing less than a violent home invasion,

with armed intruders crashing through

their door. The natural reaction would be

to engage in self-defense. Yet such a

defensive reaction on the part of a

homeowner, particularly a gun owner, will

spur officers to employ lethal force.

That‘s exactly what happened to Jose

Guerena, the young ex-Marine who was

killed after a SWAT team kicked open the

door of his Arizona home during a drug

raid and opened fire. According to news

reports, Guerena, 26 years old and the

father of two young children, grabbed a

gun in response to the forced invasion but

never fired. In fact, the safety was still on

his gun when he was killed. Police officers

were not as restrained. The young Iraqi

war veteran was allegedly fired upon 71

times. Guerena had no prior criminal

record, and the police found nothing

illegal in his home.

The problems inherent in these situations

are further compounded by the fact that

SWAT teams are granted ―no-knock‖

warrants at high rates such that the

warrants themselves are rendered

practically meaningless. This sorry state of

affairs is made even worse by recent U.S.

Supreme Court rulings that have

essentially done away with the need for a

―no-knock‖ warrant altogether, giving the

police authority to disregard the

protections afforded American citizens by

the Fourth Amendment.

In the process, Americans are rendered

altogether helpless and terror-stricken as a

result of these confrontations with the

police. Indeed, ―terrorizing‖ is a mild term

to describe the effect on those who survive

such vigilante tactics. ―It was terrible. It

was the most frightening experience of my

life. I thought it was a terrorist attack,‖

said 84-year-old Leona Goldberg, a victim

of such a raid. Yet this type of

―terrorizing‖ activity is characteristic of

the culture that we have created. As author

Eugene V. Walker, a former Boston

University professor, wrote some years

ago, ―A society in which people are

already isolated and atomized, divided by

suspicious and destructive rivalry, would

support a system of terror better than a

society without much chronic

antagonism.‖

The Psychology of Denial in the Age of

Consumerism by James John / November 3rd, 2008

Dr James Lovelock is now in his 80s.

Many years ago he coined the term Gaia to

describe how the air, the ocean and the soil

are as much part of life itself as every

living thing. He understood that the

combination of everything creates a single

giant living system that keeps the Earth in

the most favourable state for life.

Late last year he gave a talk to the

prestigious Royal Society in London

where he said, ―Few seem to realise that

the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change] IPCC models predict almost

unanimously that by 2040 the average

summer in Europe will be as hot as the

summer of 2003 when over 30,000 died

from heat. By then we may cool ourselves

with air conditioning, but without

extensive irrigation the plants will die and

both farming and natural ecosystems will

be replaced by scrub and desert. What will

there be to eat? The same dire changes will

affect the rest of the world and I can

envisage Americans migrating into Canada

and the Chinese into Siberia, but there may

be little food for any of them.‖

And recently it was reported that the

average summer temperature in Sydney,

Australia could be close to 50 degrees C.

Average?? So we all ‗solve‘ that by

getting air conditioning. But what runs that

but electricity, and in this country that

means coal. Being the creatures we are, we

arrange to keep cool by using just what is

required to make us even hotter.

The fact that we can even consider this

idiotic idea to save us in the future,

without dealing with our lifestyle now so it

does not happen, is the reason for this

article.

On the way I am going to explore two

other tracks. This is the second: In the past

fifty years the rich countries have used

more resources than every human who

ever lived before. We are the throw-away

culture – and that is only because we are

producing so much we can afford to throw

things away.

I lived in Bali for a while in the 70s. There

was no plastic, little metal, and just

enough food. Nothing was ever thrown

away as everything, no mater how small,

could be put to good use. Wrapping was a

banana leaf, and when finished was eaten

by the pigs.

By comparison our waste (the waste that

reflects how much we make and consume)

is beyond belief. Though I have only US

figures, ours are comparable. One example

will do: every year Americans throw away

enough aluminum cans to make six

thousand DC-10 airplanes.

It makes an interesting quiz question: the

total US yearly waste would fill a convoy

of ten-ton garbage trucks long enough to:

a. reach half-way to the moon

b. wrap around the Earth six times

c. connect the North and South Poles

d. build a bridge between North America

and China

The answer is b. Even though Americans

comprise only five percent of the world‘s

population, they use nearly a third of its

resources and produce almost half of its

hazardous waste. And in Australia we

could not find the gumption to phase out

plastic bags.

So, here is the third track: In a recent

survey of people who voluntarily cut back

their consumption, eighty-six percent said

that they were happier as a result. Only

nine percent said they were less happy.

Three tracks. They tell us that high

consumption is threatening the planet,

burying us under unbelievable amounts of

waste, and is not making us happier.

Something is definitely wrong.

Why are we doing this?

We are in fact quite clever in deceiving

ourselves. We have exported the more

obvious toxic wastes of the industries that

satisfy our consumption to other countries,

to China and India where carbon emissions

rose by 8 percent last year, and will rise

even more this year.

The CSIRO, Australia‘s federal research

centre, reported the global outcome:

―There has been a four-fold increase in the

rate of human-generated carbon dioxide

emissions since 2000.‖ Four-fold (!!) and

the world is supposed to becoming

conscious of global warming, serious

about mitigating it and holding endless and

apparently futile conferences in Kyoto,

Nairobi and Bali to address it.

In spite of all the rhetoric, the situation is

getting worse by the day.

This four-fold increase has come because

we are consuming more and more. Now

why is this? Knowing the state of the

planet surely we would rein ourselves in –

but do we? There has been enough

information shoved in front of us, but what

are we doing with that?

Little, and for good reason.

Remember I am a therapist and have

worked with clients for twenty years. In

my experience most of us take whatever

frightens us or makes us uncomfortable

and push it out of sight. This puts it into

the unconscious. It does not disappear, but

just lies in waiting like a faithful hound

until let out.

Meanwhile the conscious part can go on

living as if nothing had happened. But as

Carl Jung pointed out so perspicaciously,

the hound keeps howling from the depth

and thereby influences all that we do. So

we cant go on as before. We may try to

carry on as always, but in truth everything

we do is influenced by the unseen and

suppressed feelings from the hound in the

kennel.

There being no escape, we act out this

unconscious material, but pretend we are

still being normal. This seems to be the

reason we have all become so much busier

during the past ten years, and why we are

buying more and more as if there is no

tomorrow. The greedy men on Wall Street

invented ways of making money that could

not be sustained, especially over the past 6

or 7 years. The hierarchy in China started

building coal-fired power stations at the

rate of six or seven every month, and India

is planning not to be left behind.

Wherever we look there is madness.

Fishermen, knowing that 90 percent of the

big fish have gone, resort to bottom

trawling that eradicates all in its path;

loggers destroy the ‗lungs of the planet‘ in

an unscrupulous grab for profits; the

Balinese build over their paddy fields to

make room for tourist hotels; etc etc. The

whole world is in a mad grab for the last

bit before it is all gets burnt up.

This is the influence of the hound in the

unconscious. We don‘t understand what is

really motivating us, but remain caught in

the excitement of having shiny new things,

and to hell with the consequences.

Why? Isn‘t it better to be honest? In fact,

no – its more dangerous by a long shot.

In my experience, once we begin to open

Pandora‘s Box we cannot be sure what

will come creeping out. Most of my clients

quite quickly recognise that they don‘t

really love themselves. When they look

inside it feels empty. I have only rarely

met a client who does not feel there is an

vacant hole within that is black and full of

grief.

It is an essential aspect of growing up that

we suppress who we really are in order to

be accepted and loved by mum and dad.

This means we actually push our real

needs away in order to cope with their

demands. It is as if we have sacrificed our

original selves to get their love, and it

leaves a trail of sorrow.

We call it Existential Grief because its

about our very existence. It is about us

being ‗socialised‘ by the family and school

so that we forget who we truly are. This

leaves an enormous grief that is too

difficult to confront, and we hide it in the

kennel of the unconscious, leaving the

howls from the kennel to undermine our

self-confidence.

In our society we use material goods and

social roles to cover up the black hole of

grief. By surrounding ourselves with pretty

and expensive things we tell everyone else

that we are really OK. This is, so I learn

from my clients, the major cause of going

shopping, going on buying sprees and

being consumers. We have come to

believe that bright new things will fill the

empty spaces inside.

This seems to be why we cannot really

confront the devil of global warming that

is being fed by every dollar we spend. For

our own safety as a species we should all

be consuming less and sharing more and

striving to make life simple, whereas we

are literally hell-bent on getting the most

while we still can.

The hound sitting in the kennel of our

emptiness makes it too hard for us to look

at the truth and change our ways. We

cannot alter the terminal path we are on,

because to do so would expose our deepest

fears that underneath all the tinsel and

stuff we really are not worth much at all.

Not even the protection we should be

giving to our beautiful children is enough

to move us to confront this terrifying

personal fear.

A four-year analysis of the world‘s

ecosystems sponsored by the Worldwatch

Institute found that over-consumption has

pushed 15 out of 24 ecosystems essential

to human life ―beyond their sustainable

limits.‖ Our insatiable desire for more is

moving the planet toward a state of

collapse that may be ―abrupt and

potentially irreversible.‖

Since we all know that, can we not go

beyond the fear to follow David

Attenborough, who said in a recent

interview, ―How could I look my

grandchildren in the eye and say I knew

and did nothing?―

America’s Obsession with Celebrities and Celebrity

News: When is it too much? Marcy Franklin

One typical morning, I flipped the channel

to CNN to catch up on my current events. I

saw uninterrupted coverage with serious

anchors and reporters giving the grave

news that someone had died. My first

instinct told me that it was someone who

carried a lot of importance in society –

perhaps a politician, humanitarian, or

celebrity. Sure enough, in due time I

learned that it was Anna Nicole Smith. She

was just a girl famous for being famous, a

Playboy bunny, who frequently graced the

cover of tabloids for her less-than-

flattering antics. I then checked my local

newspapers‘ websites, and saw more

disturbing news: Britney Spears had

shaved her head. And from there it was a

downhill slide. I had to learn more about

how Anna died, why Britney shaved her

head, why an acclaimed NASA astronaut

wore diapers to drive 900 miles to harass

her competition to another‘s astronaut

heart… But why did I even care? Why was

it so important for me to know who

Anna‘s baby‘s father was, when I certainly

wasn‘t a fan of hers before her death? It

didn‘t seem all that important to me, and

yet I couldn‘t stop reading these stories.

It is a question that must be asked

in our celebrity culture: why do we care?

What possesses us to keep up on our

celebrity news? It comes as no surprise

that our society is obsessed, mesmerized

with fame. We want to be near it, we want

to have it as our own. Jake Halpern, the

author of Fame Junkies: The Hidden

Truths Behind America‘s Addiction, noted

a survey given to 635 middle school

students in Rochester, New York. One

question asked with whom they would

most like to have dinner. The clear winner,

with 17.4 percent, was awarded to Jennifer

Lopez. Jesus Christ came in at second with

16.8 percent, and Paris Hilton and 50 Cent

tied for third with 15.8 percent (Halpern

xvi). Additionally, when students were

asked to rank which job they would most

like to have in the future, the clear winner

was the job of a celebrity personal

assistant, sweeping the contest with 43.4

percent (Halpern xvi). The children of our

nation, according to these results, are more

interested in fame and celebrities rather

than the scholars and leaders of our time.

What is even more disturbing is that

children are not even aspiring to

necessarily be famous – they want to assist

celebrities. They are more willing to be a

servant to fame rather than do something

noteworthy with their own lives.

Appalling as the results may be, who are

we to blame? The finger points in the

direction of the media. During the Anna

Nicole Smith saga, the mainstream media

outlets neglected to inform the public that

Al Qaeda had been building operatives in

Pakistan that were steadily growing

(Herbert, para. 7). Rather, the public was

inundated with the news from the Anna

Nicole melodrama. And the entertainment

business is multiplying daily, while the

news industry is on the decline. The talent

competition American Idol brings in more

viewers than the nightly news on NBC,

ABC, and CBS combined (Halpern xv). Is

our obsession with fame blinding us to the

important events and issues of our time, or

do we simply ignore them? More

importantly, is the media emphasizing

celebrity news over hard news, and, if so,

why?

As a journalism major, I have been

faithfully taught that the purpose of

journalism is to inform citizens so that we

can be a free and self-governing society. It

seems so simple and clear to us in theory,

but it is harder to act on those purposes.

When I see the overwhelming amount of

celebrity coverage in the media, it makes

me question whether the media is fulfilling

its journalistic purpose. It is the role, the

responsibility, of the media to give us the

information that citizens need to be self-

governing. It is essential that the media

give us the news that helps our democracy

to be self-governing, yet it is clear that

celebrity news is hindering our society‘s

ability to be independent and free.

Many will argue that there is nothing

inherently wrong about celebrity news,

especially in the form of tabloid

journalism. Henrik Ornebring, of the

University of Leicester in the UK, and

Anna Maria Jonnson, of the Goteburg

University and Sodertom University

College of Sweden, argue that tabloid

journalism is not simply another synonym

for ―bad‖ journalism. The authors stress

that the mainstream media creates a need

for an alternative media to present

different issues. The problem, these

professors argue, is that these alternative

media outlets, especially tabloids, are

labeled deterrents to serving the public

interest. The authors write,

Lay (and sometimes academic) criticism

of journalism continues to be based around

simply binary oppositions, where

emotional is bad and rational-intellectual

is good, sensation is contrasted with

contextualisation and tabloid journalism is

charged with meeting complexity with

dumbing down. But emotionalism,

sensation and simplification are not

necessarily opposed to serving the public

good (Ornebring and Jonsson, 284).

As the authors mention later, tabloid

journalism throughout history has attracted

a new public by discussing issues that

have been ignored in the mainstream

media, therefore better serving the public

interest (Ornebring and Jonsson, 287).

Celebrity news has a similar effect on the

public; celebrity gossip media outlets, like

the E! Channel or People magazine bring

in audiences looking for celebrity gossip

that is not found in mainstream media.

Furthermore, some argue that interest

in celebrities, or as psychology

professionals define it, ―celebrity

worship,‖ is not necessarily a bad thing.

According to a psychological study, low

levels of celebrity worship correlate with

high levels of extraversion in people.

Psychology researchers John Maltby, Liza

Day, Lynn E. McCutcheon, Raphael

Gillett, James Houran, and Diane D. Ashe

write, ―Celebrity worshippers who do so

for entertainment-social reasons are

extraverted, seek information and support,

and are able to display emotions‖ (423).

These characteristics defend the purpose

behind celebrity news. Bonnie Fuller, the

chief editorial director for American

Media Inc., the tabloid conglomerate that

publishes the Star, the National Enquirer,

and the Globe, said,

What‘s going on is that we all have fewer

people in common. When you‘re in high

school, or at a small college, you know

everybody‘s business and you can follow

their romantic goings-on and discuss them

with your friends. But when you grow up

and you‘re out in the work world, you

don‘t have that. So celebrities give us a

whole world of people in common –

people to gossip about at work over the

water cooler or at a dinner party (Halpern,

147).

Celebrity news then serves to bring people

together socially and give people an

escape from mainstream media. Fuller‘s

argument then seems to justify the validity

of celebrity news. However, it should be

noted that Fuller‘s career depends on the

validity of celebrity news.

This is not a paper criticizing people‘s

desire to learn about celebrities. However,

I believe that the argument that celebrity

news is valid within the mainstream media

contains loopholes too big to ignore. I will

concede that celebrity news is not a bad

thing when it is contained to alternative

media outlets like the E! channel or People

magazine. These media outlets are no

different than any other specialized media,

for example, a sports channel or a sports

magazine. This is because they cater to the

audience‘s interests, and indeed, there is a

very large audience that is interested in

celebrities. But when celebrity news

crowds out other news on mainstream

media outlets, then it becomes a problem.

It has changed what news agencies are

pursuing as news. Sue Cross, the Vice

President /West of the Associated Press,

reported that the news wire service now

gets requests from as far away as

Indonesia and Germany to report on

celebrity stories (Merina, para. 32).

Additionally, a study done by Thomas

Patterson of Harvard University found that

―soft‖ news stories, which includes

celebrity news, have increased from 35

percent of stories to 50 percent of stories,

from 1980 to 2001 (Valencia, para. 6).

Celebrity news is taking up valuable

space, time and resources that could be

dedicated to pursuing stories that make a

difference in society.

The Anna Nicole saga may be the most

recent prime example. The amount of

airtime, page space, and resources

dedicated to following the drama was

overwhelming in comparison to the

coverage of other news stories. Nick

Madigan of the Baltimore Sun reported in

his editorial that according the Project for

Excellence in Journalism, the Smith story

was the number one story on cable

television for a week, and that it took up

half the news airtime in the first two days

after her death. (Madigan, para. 21) In

addition, the major mainstream media

outlets spent more time dedicated to

Smith‘s story than a developing story

about the haphazard conditions and

substandard care for wounded soldiers at

the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

One website that tracks media coverage,

TheLeftCoaster.com, tracked the number

of references of the Smith story and the

Walter Reed story on news networks. On

March 2, Fox News had 10 references to

the Walter Reed story, compared to an

astounding 121 references to Anna Nicole

Smith. The other mainstream media outlets

did not fare much better than Fox News;

MSNBC had 84 references to Walter Reed

compared to 96 to Anna Nicole. CNN,

which appeared to be more serious in its

news-gathering, had 53 mentions of

Walter Reed compared to 40 references to

Anna Nicole (Madigan, para. 22). These

reports are dismal and shocking. Perhaps it

is no wonder that we as Americans are

claimed to be uninformed about important

issues of our time. When the media should

be providing news about an issue that

affects numerous people, citizens are

instead learning more about a Playboy

bunny whose fame was inherent only after

death.

This is not to say that Anna Nicole‘s death

has no worth as a breaking news story. But

a mention on mainstream media outlets

would certainly have sufficed; there are

numerous celebrity news outlets to cover

her death. Continuing with the arguments

of Ornebring and Jonsson, if the

mainstream media have created alternative

media outlets, then celebrity news should

be kept to those outlets. If people wish to

learn about their favorite celebrities, then

by all means, they have an abundant

number of outlets to choose from.

Celebrity news has no place in the

mainstream media; there are more than

plenty of alternative media outlets to cover

celebrities.

However, many argue that celebrity news

is needed for the news industry to survive.

Another argument in favor of celebrity

journalism in mainstream media is that the

media industry needs celebrity news to

boost its ratings or circulation numbers.

Undoubtedly, mediums such as

newspapers are losing readers rapidly. But

while circulation numbers and ratings are

decreasing, the ―infotainment‖ industry is

booming. People, Us Weekly, InStyle and

Entertainment Weekly magazines saw an

increase of 18.7 percent in circulation;

news magazines like Time, Newsweek,

The New Yorker and The Atlantic saw an

increase of 2 percent (Halpern xv). As a

result, mainstream media outlets are

hopping on the tabloid bandwagon. Jay T.

Harris, a former editor of a big city tabloid

and the Wallis Annenberg Chair in the

Annenberg School of Communication at

USC, acknowledged the advantages

sensational celebrity news has for

journalists. In his opinion, it is undeniable

that celebrity coverage sells. In an article

for the conference ―Reporting on

Celebrities: The Ethics of News

Coverage,‖ he wrote,

I guess journalists could argue that

celebrity coverage is smart business.

Further, I will stipulate that, by extension,

competitive pressures provide a plausible

justification for celebrity coverage — if I

don't do it my competitor will and that will

be to my disadvantage (Harris, para. 6).

If the media believes that celebrity news

can rescue them from dismal numbers,

then they will certainly keep giving their

audiences more sensational news. There is,

however, a problem with this rationale.

Because celebrity news is able to raise

circulation and ratings numbers, this leads

to the belief that people must want more

coverage of celebrities rather than real

news stories.

Although the media seems to

believe that their audiences want more

celebrity news, it is not necessarily true.

The world‘s largest news agency, the

Associated Press, decided in February of

2007 to suspend temporarily its coverage

of the famous heiress, Paris Hilton. Editors

wanted to see the results if they didn‘t

publish any stories about Hilton (Madigan,

para. 3). At about the same time, on

February 9, 2007 Brian Williams, the

anchor of NBC‘s Nightly News, posted on

his web log, the Daily Nightly, ―Viewer

warning: There will be no mention of

Britney Spears' baldness or rehab in

tonight's broadcast, nor will there be any

mention of Anna Nicole's 'body

possession' hearing" (Deggans, para. 2).

He said later,

I wrote it on a whim… I realized I was

watching three cable news networks doing

some combination (of stories) on a bald

singer leaving rehab for a second time and

a dead former Playmate whose body is

being argued over. I've got a world to

cover . . . (and) if I thought for a moment

that Nightly News was somehow

depriving a yearning nation of these twin

tragedies, I would rethink that decision

(Deggans, para. 4).

Now, was there uproar over Williams‘

decision to not give time to Britney and

Paris? Were news agencies clamoring for

more Paris stories from the Associated

Press? Not quite. The Associated Press, to

its surprise, found that no one requested

any Paris stories during its suspension.

Although, in all fairness, the agency did

note that nothing out of the ordinary

happened to Hilton, "No [media outlet] felt

a newsworthy event had been ignored‖

(Madigan, para. 6). Rem Reider, an editor

for the American Journalism Review,

agreed that the AP‘s experiment exposed

something about the American public. He

was quoted as saying; "I don't think the

world would be diminished if there were a

Paris Hilton blackout – with all respect to

Paris Hilton‖ (Madigan, para. 1). Brian

Williams found support for his decision

from his viewers. Comments on his blog

were actually in support of his decision.

Wrote Matthew Cowan Mechanicsburg of

Pennsylvania, ―Your judgment is

excellent. I was so glad to see some news

last night. I was afraid I'd see nothing but

Anna Nicole‖ (Williams, 2007). Williams

even responded to those who opposed his

decision to not give Smith any coverage.

He said that if people disagreed with his

editorial decision, they could get that news

from a number of other news sources. He

wrote on his blog,

It's not as if there aren't other news outlets

for those viewers dissatisfied with our

treatment of the story and the end of a

tragic life. People watch our broadcast

presumably because they trust our

reporting and our people, and because they

agree with our editorial take on the day

more often than not. The great thing about

this era of media choice is that all those

who find our broadcast lacking in any way

are free to go to any number of Web sites

where they can find video showing a cat

flushing a toilet, or the explosive

properties of Diet Coke and Mentos when

mixed together (Williams, para. 2).

However, Williams did receive some

criticism for not covering Smith. Wrote

Eric Deggans in an editorial in the St.

Petersburg Times, a respected journalist

like Williams could have provided an

insightful look into Smith‘s story rather

than the mindless coverage on every cable

channel (Deggans, para. 7). But Williams

recognized that people do not want as

much celebrity news as the media believe.

In fact, the study by Patterson

found that audiences actually preferred

issue stories rather than soft news stories,

celebrity news included. The study, which

looked at over 5,000 stories from the

Lexus Nexus database of two television

networks, three prominent newspapers,

and 26 local dailies, found that the

foundation of news audiences are those

who read hard news stories (Valencia,

para. 12). People look to the mainstream

media outlets to get the news, not to be

informed of the latest celebrity

happenings.

Furthermore, some argue that using

the ―infotainment‖ strategy actually hurts

rather than helps news organizations in the

end. Media scholars Bill Kovach and Tom

Rosenstiel argue that when news turns into

entertainment, news organizations must

compete with media other than their own,

a competition that they cannot win

(Kovach and Rosenstiel, 154).

―Infotainment‖ also creates audiences that

are not reliable in terms of ratings and

circulation numbers. Kovach and

Rosenstiel write,

The strategy of infotainment, though it

may attract an audience in the short run

and may be cheap to produce, will build a

shallow audience because it is built on

form, not substance. Such an audience will

switch to the next ―most exciting‖ thing

because it was built on the spongy ground

of excitement in the first place (155).

The media‘s argument that validates

celebrity news‘ worth in the mainstream

media is therefore faulty. Celebrity news

doesn‘t just hurt the audiences, but it hurts

news organizations as well. In a time

where the news industry is struggling to

survive, news organizations should be

wary of the dangers that celebrity news

has.

Therefore, celebrity news is a viable threat

to both our media and our democracy.

According to Kovach and Rosenstiel, the

primary purpose of journalism is ―to

provide citizens with the information they

need to be free and self-governing‖

(Kovach and Rosenstiel, 17). The media

have a responsibility to citizens to inform

the public, or democracy suffers. Jay T.

Harris, a former editor of a big city tabloid

and the Wallis Annenberg Chair in the

Annenberg School of Communication at

USC, sees the possible damage that

celebrity news has for the future of our

society. He said,

We [journalists] are the essential plumbing

— we carry useful information, including

information on changing values, priorities,

and shared challenges. But we also carry

(or maybe spread is the better word here)

that which weakens, that which corrodes,

that which debases (Harris, para. 9).

Additionally, actor Ed Asner, at the

―Reporting on Celebrities: The Ethics of

News Coverage‖ conference, called out

celebrity news for contributing to the

―moral decay‖ of the country (Merina,

para. 39). It‘s ironic that such harsh

criticism of the journalism field comes

from an actor, who is one of the many

players in the crisis of celebrity news.

So then, what are the consequences

of celebrity news? Why is it so damaging

to our democracy? We can look to the

theory of agenda-setting to explain the

possible effects of too much celebrity

news. According to the book Questioning

the Media: A Critical Introduction, the

news media has the power to define what

is news, and what is not. Therefore,

whatever the news media gives the most

prominence to, we consider to be news and

important. The definition reads, ―News

media power is based not so much on how

the media interpret events to us as it is on

the sheer fact that they can set our agenda

of things to think about in the first place‖

(Downing et al., 478). Thus, if

mainstream media is emphasizing

celebrity news over important news

stories, then we are more likely to think

about celebrities rather than the issues that

are pertinent to our democracy. The

consequences of this are huge. Suppose

that all we cared about is Anna Nicole‘s

baby, or Britney‘s meltdown rather than

the issues that make a difference in our

lives. How can a democracy possibly

survive on paparazzi photographs and

celebrity relationships without the

information it needs to be self-governing?

It cannot. Famed journalist Edward R.

Murrow put it wisely in 1958, to the

Radio-Television News Directors

Association Convention, ―For surely we

shall pay for using this most powerful

instrument of communication [television]

to insulate the citizenry from the hard and

demanding realities which must be faced if

we are to survive. I mean the word survive

literally‖ (Murrow, para. 5). Journalists

cannot insulate citizens with celebrity

gossip, for it will be detrimental to society.

In all of my research, I found that no one

in the journalism field was eager to take

sides on the issue. Although many were

quick to gripe about the huge amount of

celebrity news that appears in mainstream

media, they also recognize that without it,

news media would not survive. Although

many see celebrity news as demeaning to

their work, they also realize that many

people want it. So then, what are

mainstream media to do? Do they cater to

profits and market demands or by what

they believe to be right? Do they give

citizens more celebrity news, or the news

that they see as important? Who, then,

decides what news is important and what

news audiences need? They are questions

with no easy answers. But it distresses me

greatly to see that my work in the future,

the field and career that I am committed

to, may be diminished to following trails

of the latest celebrity gossip. I certainly

didn‘t become interested in the field of

journalism because I wanted to follow

rumors of Britney Spears‘ antics. I became

passionate about journalism because I

believed that the stories that I would write

would make a difference in my

democracy, in my society. Do stories

about Britney Spears indeed help the

citizens and make a difference? For

entertainment purposes, maybe, but I

would have to argue they do not help

citizens. I will continue to believe, with

perhaps a bit of blind optimism, that the

purpose of journalism is not to simply give

audiences fluff, information that they do

not need. I will believe that the purpose of

journalism still is, and always will be, to

provide the citizens with information that

our democracy needs to function.

Therefore, I urge the entire mainstream

media to retrace its steps back to the roots

and principles of journalism. I challenge

the industry to think outside the market

demands, the world of ratings and

circulation numbers, and to once again

consider the audience and what it needs.

As Kovach and Rosenstiel worded it so

eloquently, journalism‘s first loyalty is to

the citizens, and its first obligation is to

provide those citizens with the information

they need (p. 13). Celebrity news in the

mainstream media is hindering our news

industry from fulfilling its journalistic

duties, and in turn hurting the citizens of

our democracy.

Works Cited

Deggans, Eric. ―Anna Nicole and Britney?

Yes, they are news.‖ St. Petersburg Times.

27

Feb. 2007. Lexus Nexus. Boulder, CO. 14

Mar. 2007.

<http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu>.

Downing, John, Ali Mohammadi, and

Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi.

Questioning the

Media: a Critical Introduction. 2nd ed.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications,

1995.

Herbert, Bob. "From Anna to Britney to

Zawahri." The New York Times 2007.

Lexus

Nexus. Boulder, CO. 26 Feb. 2007.

<http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu>.

Halpern, Jake. Fame Junkies: the Hidden

Truths Behind America's Favorite

Addiction.

New York: Houghton Mifflin Company,

2007.

Harris, Jay T. "Why Do We Care About

Celebrities?" Poynter Online. 21 Jan.

2004.

Poynter Institute. 21 Mar. 2007.

<www.poynter.org>.

Kovach, Bill and Tom Rosenstiel. The

Elements of Journalism. New York, NY:

Three

Rivers Press, 2001. 187-207.

Madigan, Nick. ―Media Say ‗Enough

Already.‘‖ The Baltimore Sun. 11 Mar.

2007.

Lexus Nexus. Boulder, CO. 14 Mar. 2007.

<http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu>

Maltby, John, Liza Day, Lynn E.

McCutcheon, Raphael Gillett, James

Houran, and Diane

D. Ashe. "Personality and Coping: a

Context for Examining Celebrity Worship

and Mental Health." British Journal of

Psychology 95 (2004): 411-428. Thomson

Gale. Boulder, CO. 23 Feb. 2007.

<http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu>.

Merina, Victor. "Celebrities in Journalism:

the Ethics of News Coverage." Poynter

Online. 22 Jan. 2004. Poynter Institute. 23

Feb. 2007 <www.poynter.org>.

Murrow, Edward R. "Keynote Speeches."

Radio-Television News Directors

Association.

The Association of Electronic Journalists.

18 Apr. 2007 <www.rtnda.org>.

Ornebring, Henrik and Anna Maria

Jonsson. "Tabloid Journalism and the

Public Sphere:

A Historical Perspective on Tabloid

Journalism." Journalism Studies 5 (2004):

283-295. Academic Search Premier.

Boulder, CO. 23 Feb. 2007.

<http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu>

Valencia, Monica. "The Wet Stuff, the

White Stuff and the Pooch: Sensationalism

and

Gossip in News." Poynter Online. 21 Aug.

2001. Poynter Institute. 14 Feb. 2007

<http://www.colorado.edu/pwr/occasions/

articles/www.poynter.org>.

Williams, Brian. "About Last Night..."

MSNBC. 9 Feb. 2007. 21 Mar. 2007.

<http://dailynightly.msnbc.com/2007/02/p

ost_1.html#comments>.

Samir Amin: Colonialism is Inseparable from

Capitalism Translated by Patrick Bolland

Translated Saturday 28 January 2006, by Patrick Bolland The ongoing debate on colonialism. For

Samir Amin, increasing globalization has

led to a system of apartheid on a global

scale, continuing the colonial system under

a different name.

HUMA: Are you surprised by the degree

of anger that the ―Law on the positive role

of colonialism‖ (2) has created in the

younger generation?

SAMIR AMIN: This law is scandalous,

even if it were only for the fact that a

democratic state does not have any official

history. The reaction you mention shows

that the youth are more interested in the

past than most people believe and that they

have a critical perspective on it.

Colonization was atrocious. Like slavery,

it was an attack on fundamental rights.

Yet, if you want to understand why these

rights were trampled on and why they still

are being trodden on in the world today,

you have to get rid of the idea that

colonialism was the result of some sort of

conspiracy. What was at stake was the

economic and social logic that must be

called by its real name: capitalism.

HUMA: But it‘s more the Republic that

one hears being accused right now ...

SAMIR AMIN: Since the memory of

colonization is confounded with the Third

Republic in France [1870-1940], we tend

today to automatically link the two

phenomena. People forget that this

Republic was, from the beginning to the

end, capitalist. They also forget that

colonialism started well before the

Republic, whether you think of the

Caribbean or Santo Domingo [Haiti], or of

Great Britain which has never been

republican and which for three and a half

centuries had the largest empire. One

forgets that capitalism predates the

Republic and is not to be confused with a

particular political regime.

HUMA: To what extent do we need to see

capitalism and colonialism as linked to

each other?

SAMIR AMIN: They are inseparable.

Capitalism has been colonial, more

precisely imperialist, during all the most

notable periods of its development. The

conquest of the Americas by the Spaniards

and Portuguese in the 16th century, then

by the French and the British, was the first

modern form of imperialism and

colonization: an extremely brutal form

which resulted in the genocide of the

Indians of North America, Indian societies

in Latin America thrown into slavery and

black slavery through the whole continent,

north and south. Beyond this example, by

following a logic of precise deployment

through the different stages of its history,

we can see that capitalism has constructed

a consistent dichotomy of relations

between a centre (the heart of the system

of capitalist exploitation) and the

periphery (made up of dominated

countries and peoples).

HUMA: How has the system of colonial

exploitation worked?

SAMIR AMIN: It has been based on

unequal exchange, that is, the exchange of

manufactured products, sold very

expensively in the colonies by commercial

monopolies supported by the State, for the

purchase of products or primary products

at very low prices, since they were based

on labour that was almost without cost -

provided by the peasants and workers

located at the periphery. During all the

stages of capitalism, the plunder of the

resources of the peripheries, the

oppression of colonized peoples, their

direct or indirect exploitation by capital,

remain the common characteristics of the

phenomenon of colonialism.

HUMA: Beyond the injustices and

inequalities which it created in French

society, have we returned to the Age of

Colonialism?

SAMIR AMIN: We can discuss these

terms, but the reality remains - in other

words the hyper-exploitation and plunder

of the South. In this respect, how are we to

describe the WTO if not as the

multinationals‘ club for looting the Third

World, a sort-of global Super-Ministry of

the Colonies? Is it really an organization

responsible for facilitating world trade, as

it pretends to be, or an organization for

defending the monopolies of the

imperialist capitalist nations by providing

excessive protection for so-called

industrial and intellectual property rights,

through setting up a false symmetry -

opening up markets for the plunder of

resources in the South without giving the

South access to markets in the North? I

call this apartheid on a world scale, the

extension of colonialism into today‘s

world.

Translator‘s notes:

(1)Egyptian-born and trained in Paris,

Samir Amin is one of the better known

thinkers of his generation, both in

development theory as well as in the

relativistic-cultural critique of social

sciences. He is currently Director of the

Polycentric Third World Forum in Dakar,

Senegal, an international pool of

academics from Africa, Asia and South-

America as well as President of the World

Forum for Alternatives. Amin‘s work has

focused on the relationships between

developed and undeveloped countries. One

of the most important concepts of his work

is the ―theory of the disconnection‖, in

which he explains why the

underdeveloped countries should

disconnect themselves from the capitalistic

world system, become self-reliant and

abandon northern values, in order to allow

for the creation of both democracy and

socialism in the South. He has written

extensively on economics, development

and international affairs. His major works

include ―Capitalism in the Age of

Globalization‖ (1996), ―Delinking -

Toward a Polycentric World‖ (1990),

―Eurocentrism‖ (1990). He has just

published ―Pour un monde multipolaire‖

(Éditions Syllepse)

(2) On 25 January 2006, Jacques Chirac

issued a press release agreeing to pass a

decree to suppress the much disputed

clauses in Article 4 of the Law passed by

the his own deputies in the French

Legislature on 23 February 2005, which

referred to ―the positive role of the French

presence, particularly in North Africa‖,

and which, the Law stipulated, should be

recognized in courses taught in the school

system.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt:

State of the Union Message (1934) State of the Union Address: Franklin D. Roosevelt (January 3, 1934) — Infoplease.com

http://www.infoplease.com/t/hist/state-of-the-union/145.html#ixzz1DIfFCYSm Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Senators and

Representatives in Congress:

I come before you at the opening of the

Regular Session of the 73d Congress, not

to make requests for special or detailed

items of legislation; I come, rather, to

counsel with you, who, like myself, have

been selected to carry out a mandate of the

whole people, in order that without

partisanship you and I may cooperate to

continue the restoration of our national

wellbeing and, equally important, to build

on the ruins of the past a new structure

designed better to meet the present

problems of modern civilization.

Such a structure includes not only the

relations of industry and agriculture and

finance to each other but also the effect

which all of these three have on our

individual citizens and on the whole

people as a Nation.

Now that we are definitely in the process

of recovery, lines have been rightly drawn

between those to whom this recovery

means a return to old methods--and the

number of these people is small--and those

for whom recovery means a reform of

many old methods, a permanent

readjustment of many of our ways of

thinking and therefore of many of our

social and economic arrangements. . . . .

Civilization cannot go back; civilization

must not stand still. We have undertaken

new methods. It is our task to perfect, to

improve, to alter when necessary, but in all

cases to go forward. To consolidate what

we are doing, to make our economic and

social structure capable of dealing with

modern life is the joint task of the

legislative, the judicial, and the executive

branches of the national Government.

Without regard to party, the overwhelming

majority of our people seek a greater

opportunity for humanity to prosper and

find happiness. They recognize that human

welfare has not increased and does not

increase through mere materialism and

luxury, but that it does progress through

integrity, unselfishness, responsibility and

justice.

In the past few months, as a result of our

action, we have demanded of many

citizens that they surrender certain licenses

to do as they please in their business

relationships; but we have asked this in

exchange for the protection which the

State can give against exploitation by their

fellow men or by combinations of their

fellow men.

I congratulate this Congress upon the

courage, the earnestness and the efficiency

with which you met the crisis at the

Special Session. It was your fine

understanding of the national problem that

furnished the example which the country

has so splendidly followed. I venture to

say that the task confronting the First

Congress of 1789 was no greater than your

own.

I shall not attempt to set forth either the

many phases of the crisis which we

experienced last March, or the many

measures which you and I undertook

during the Special Session that we might

initiate recovery and reform.

It is sufficient that I should speak in broad

terms of the results of our common

counsel. The credit of the Government has

been fortified by drastic reduction in the

cost of its permanent agencies through the

Economy Act.

With the twofold purpose of strengthening

the whole financial structure and of

arriving eventually at a medium of

exchange which over the years will have

less variable purchasing and debt paying

power for our people than that of the past,

I have used the authority granted me to

purchase all American-produced gold and

silver and to buy additional gold in the

world markets. Careful investigation and

constant study prove that in the matter of

foreign exchange rates certain of our sister

Nations find themselves so handicapped

by internal and other conditions that they

feel unable at this time to enter into

stabilization discussion based on

permanent and world-wide objectives.

The overwhelming majority of the banks,

both national and State, which reopened

last spring, are in sound condition and

have been brought within the protection of

Federal insurance. In the case of those

banks which were not permitted to reopen,

nearly six hundred million dollars of

frozen deposits are being restored to the

depositors through the assistance of the

national Government.

We have made great strides toward the

objectives of the National Industrial

Recovery Act, for not only have several

millions of our unemployed been restored

to work, but industry is organizing itself

with a greater understanding that

reasonable profits can be earned while at

the same time protection can be assured to

guarantee to labor adequate pay and proper

conditions of work. Child labor is

abolished. Uniform standards of hours and

wages apply today to 95 percent of

industrial employment within the field of

the National Industrial Recovery Act. We

seek the definite end of preventing

combinations in furtherance of monopoly

and in restraint of trade, while at the same

time we seek to prevent ruinous rivalries

within industrial groups which in many

cases resemble the gang wars of the

underworld and in which the real victim in

every case is the public itself.

Under the authority of this Congress, we

have brought the component parts of each

industry together around a common table,

just as we have brought problems affecting

labor to a common meeting ground.

Though the machinery, hurriedly devised,

may need readjustment from time to time,

nevertheless I think you will agree with

me that we have created a permanent

feature of our modernized industrial

structure and that it will continue under the

supervision but not the arbitrary dictation

of Government itself.

You recognized last spring that the most

serious part of the debt burden affected

those who stood in danger of losing their

farms and their homes. I am glad to tell

you that refinancing in both of these cases

is proceeding with good success and in all

probability within the financial limits set

by the Congress.

But agriculture had suffered from more

than its debts. Actual experience with the

operation of the Agricultural Adjustment

Act leads to my belief that thus far the

experiment of seeking a balance between

production and consumption is succeeding

and has made progress entirely in line with

reasonable expectations toward the

restoration of farm prices to parity. I

continue in my conviction that industrial

progress and prosperity can only be

attained by bringing the purchasing power

of that portion of our population which in

one form or another is dependent upon

agriculture up to a level which will restore

a proper balance between every section of

the country and between every form of

work.

In this field, through carefully planned

flood control, power development and

land-use policies in the Tennessee Valley

and in other, great watersheds, we are

seeking the elimination of waste, the

removal of poor lands from agriculture and

the encouragement of small local

industries, thus furthering this principle of

a better balanced national life. We

recognize the great ultimate cost of the

application of this rounded policy to every

part off the Union. Today we are creating

heavy obligations to start the work because

of the great unemployment needs of the

moment. I look forward, however, to the

time in the not distant future, when annual

appropriations, wholly covered by current

revenue, will enable the work to proceed

under a national plan. Such a national plan

will, in a generation or two, return many

times the money spent on it; more

important, it will eliminate the use of

inefficient tools, conserve and increase

natural resources, prevent waste, and

enable millions of our people to take better

advantage of the opportunities which God

has given our country.

I cannot, unfortunately, present to you a

picture of complete optimism regarding

world affairs.

The delegation representing the United

States has worked in close cooperation

with the other American Republics

assembled at Montevideo to make that

conference an outstanding success. We

have, I hope, made it clear to our

neighbors that we seek with them future

avoidance of territorial expansion and of

interference by one Nation in the internal

affairs of another. Furthermore, all of us

are seeking the restoration of commerce in

ways which will preclude the building up

of large favorable trade balances by any

one Nation at the expense of trade debits

on the part of other Nations.

In other parts of the world, however, fear

of immediate or future aggression and with

it the spending of vast sums on armament

and the continued building up of defensive

trade barriers prevent any great progress in

peace or trade agreements. I have made it

clear that the United States cannot take

part in political arrangements in Europe

but that we stand ready to cooperate at any

time in practicable measures on a world

basis looking to immediate reduction of

armaments and the lowering of the barriers

against commerce.

I expect to report to you later in regard to

debts owed the Government and people of

this country by the Governments and

peoples of other countries. Several

Nations, acknowledging the debt, have

paid in small part; other Nations have

failed to pay. One Nation--Finland--has

paid the installments due this country in

full.

Returning to home problems, we have

been shocked by many notorious examples

of injuries done our citizens by persons or

groups who have been living off their

neighbors by the use of methods either

unethical or criminal.

In the first category--a field which does

not involve violations of the letter of our

laws--practices have been brought to light

which have shocked those who believed

that we were in the past generation raising

the ethical standards of business. They call

for stringent preventive or regulatory

measures. I am speaking of those

individuals who have evaded the spirit and

purpose of our tax laws, of those high

officials of banks or corporations who

have grown rich at the expense of their

stockholders or the public, of those

reckless speculators with their own or

other people's money whose operations

have injured the values of the farmers'

crops and the savings of the poor.

In the other category, crimes of organized

banditry, coldblooded shooting, lynching

and kidnapping have threatened our

security.

These violations of ethics and these

violations of law call on the strong arm of

Government for their immediate

suppression; they call also on the country

for an aroused public opinion.

The adoption of the Twenty-first

Amendment should give material aid to

the elimination of those new forms of

crime which came from the illegal traffic

in liquor.

I shall continue to regard it as my duty to

use whatever means may be necessary to

supplement State, local and private

agencies for the relief of suffering caused

by unemployment. With respect to this

question, I have recognized the dangers

inherent in the direct giving of relief and

have sought the means to provide not mere

relief, but the opportunity for useful and

remunerative work. We shall, in the

process of recovery, seek to move as

rapidly as possible from direct relief to

publicly supported work and from that to

the rapid restoration of private

employment.

It is to the eternal credit of the American

people that this tremendous readjustment

of our national life is being accomplished

peacefully, without serious dislocation,

with only a minimum of injustice and with

a great, willing spirit of cooperation

throughout the country.

Disorder is not an American habit. Self-

help and self-control are the essence of the

American tradition--not of necessity the

form of that tradition, but its spirit. The

program itself comes from the American

people.

It is an integrated program, national in

scope. Viewed in the large, it is designed

to save from destruction and to keep for

the future the genuinely important values

created by modern society. The vicious

and wasteful parts of that society we could

not save if we wished; they have chosen

the way of self-destruction. We would

save useful mechanical invention, machine

production, industrial efficiency, modern

means of communication, broad education.

We would save and encourage the slowly

growing impulse among consumers to

enter the industrial market place equipped

with sufficient organization to insist upon

fair prices and honest sales.

But the unnecessary expansion of

industrial plants, the waste of natural

resources, the exploitation of the

consumers of natural monopolies, the

accumulation of stagnant surpluses, child

labor, and the ruthless exploitation of all

labor, the encouragement of speculation

with other people's money, these were

consumed in the fires that they themselves

kindled; we must make sure that as we

reconstruct our life there be no soil in

which such weeds can grow again.

We have plowed the furrow and planted

the good seed; the hard beginning is over.

If we would reap the full harvest, we must

cultivate the soil where this good seed is

sprouting and the plant is reaching up to

mature growth.

A final personal word. I know that each of

you will appreciate that. I am speaking no

mere politeness when I assure you how

much I value the fine relationship that we

have shared during these months of hard

and incessant work. Out of these friendly

contacts we are, fortunately, building a

strong and permanent tie between the

legislative and executive branches of the

Government. The letter of the Constitution

wisely declared a separation, but the

impulse of common purpose declares a

union. In this spirit we join once more in

serving the American people.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt:

State of the Union Message (1935) State of the Union Address: Franklin D. Roosevelt (January 4, 1935) — Infoplease.com

http://www.infoplease.com/t/hist/state-of-the-union/146.html#ixzz1DIfYhVNN Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of

the Senate and of the House of

Representatives:

The Constitution wisely provides that the

Chief Executive shall report to the

Congress on the state of the Union, for

through you, the chosen legislative

representatives, our citizens everywhere

may fairly judge the progress of our

governing. I am confident that today, in

the light of the events of the past two

years, you do not consider it merely a trite

phrase when I tell you that I am truly glad

to greet you and that I look forward to

common counsel, to useful cooperation,

and to genuine friendships between us.

We have undertaken a new order of things;

yet we progress to it under the framework

and in the spirit and intent of the American

Constitution. We have proceeded

throughout the Nation a measurable

distance on the road toward this new order.

Materially, I can report to you substantial

benefits to our agricultural population,

increased industrial activity, and profits to

our merchants. Of equal moment, there is

evident a restoration of that spirit of

confidence and faith which marks the

American character. Let him, who, for

speculative profit or partisan purpose,

without just warrant would seek to disturb

or dispel this assurance, take heed before

he assumes responsibility for any act

which slows our onward steps.

Throughout the world, change is the order

of the day. In every Nation economic

problems, long in the making, have

brought crises of many kinds for which the

masters of old practice and theory were

unprepared. In most Nations social justice,

no longer a distant ideal, has become a

definite goal, and ancient Governments are

beginning to heed the call.

Thus, the American people do not stand

alone in the world in their desire for

change. We seek it through tested liberal

traditions, through processes which retain

all of the deep essentials of that republican

form of representative government first

given to a troubled world by the United

States.

As the various parts in the program begun

in the Extraordinary Session of the 73rd

Congress shape themselves in practical

administration, the unity of our program

reveals itself to the Nation. The outlines of

the new economic order, rising from the

disintegration of the old, are apparent. We

test what we have done as our measures

take root in the living texture of life. We

see where we have built wisely and where

we can do still better.

The attempt to make a distinction between

recovery and reform is a narrowly

conceived effort to substitute the

appearance of reality for reality itself.

When a man is convalescing from illness,

wisdom dictates not only cure of the

symptoms, but also removal of their cause.

It is important to recognize that while we

seek to outlaw specific abuses, the

American objective of today has an

infinitely deeper, finer and more lasting

purpose than mere repression. Thinking

people in almost every country of the

world have come to realize certain

fundamental difficulties with which

civilization must reckon. Rapid changes--

the machine age, the advent of universal

and rapid communication and many other

new factors--have brought new problems.

Succeeding generations have attempted to

keep pace by reforming in piecemeal

fashion this or that attendant abuse. As a

result, evils overlap and reform becomes

confused and frustrated. We lose sight,

from time to time, of our ultimate human

objectives.

Let us, for a moment, strip from our

simple purpose the confusion that results

from a multiplicity of detail and from

millions of written and spoken words.

We find our population suffering from old

inequalities, little changed by vast sporadic

remedies. In spite of our efforts and in

spite of our talk, we have not weeded out

the over privileged and we have not

effectively lifted up the underprivileged.

Both of these manifestations of injustice

have retarded happiness. No wise man has

any intention of destroying what is known

as the profit motive; because by the profit

motive we mean the right by work to earn

a decent livelihood for ourselves and for

our families.

We have, however, a clear mandate from

the people, that Americans must forswear

that conception of the acquisition of

wealth which, through excessive profits,

creates undue private power over private

affairs and, to our misfortune, over public

affairs as well. In building toward this end

we do not destroy ambition, nor do we

seek to divide our wealth into equal shares

on stated occasions. We continue to

recognize the greater ability of some to

earn more than others. But we do assert

that the ambition of the individual to

obtain for him and his a proper security, a

reasonable leisure, and a decent living

throughout life, is an ambition to be

preferred to the appetite for great wealth

and great power.

I recall to your attention my message to

the Congress last June in which I said:

"among our objectives I place the security

of the men, women and children of the

Nation first." That remains our first and

continuing task; and in a very real sense

every major legislative enactment of this

Congress should be a component part of it.

In defining immediate factors which enter

into our quest, I have spoken to the

Congress and the people of three great

divisions:

1. The security of a livelihood through the

better use of the national resources of the

land in which we live.

2. The security against the major hazards

and vicissitudes of life.

3. The security of decent homes.

I am now ready to submit to the Congress

a broad program designed ultimately to

establish all three of these factors of

security--a program which because of

many lost years will take many future

years to fulfill.

A study of our national resources, more

comprehensive than any previously made,

shows the vast amount of necessary and

practicable work which needs to be done

for the development and preservation of

our natural wealth for the enjoyment and

advantage of our people in generations to

come. The sound use of land and water is

far more comprehensive than the mere

planting of trees, building of dams,

distributing of electricity or retirement of

sub-marginal land. It recognizes that

stranded populations, either in the country

or the city, cannot have security under the

conditions that now surround them.

To this end we are ready to begin to meet

this problem--the intelligent care of

population throughout our Nation, in

accordance with an intelligent distribution

of the means of livelihood for that

population. A definite program for putting

people to work, of which I shall speak in a

moment, is a component part of this

greater program of security of livelihood

through the better use of our national

resources.

Closely related to the broad problem of

livelihood is that of security against the

major hazards of life. Here also, a

comprehensive survey of what has been

attempted or accomplished in many

Nations and in many States proves to me

that the time has come for action by the

national Government. I shall send to you,

in a few days, definite recommendations

based on these studies. These

recommendations will cover the broad

subjects of unemployment insurance and

old age insurance, of benefits for children,

form others, for the handicapped, for

maternity care and for other aspects of

dependency and illness where a beginning

can now be made.

The third factor--better homes for our

people--has also been the subject of

experimentation and study. Here, too, the

first practical steps can be made through

the proposals which I shall suggest in

relation to giving work to the unemployed.

Whatever we plan and whatever we do

should be in the light of these three clear

objectives of security. We cannot afford to

lose valuable time in haphazard public

policies which cannot find a place in the

broad outlines of these major purposes. In

that spirit I come to an immediate issue

made for us by hard and inescapable

circumstance--the task of putting people to

work. In the spring of 1933 the issue of

destitution seemed to stand apart; today, in

the light of our experience and our new

national policy, we find we can put people

to work in ways which conform to, initiate

and carry forward the broad principles of

that policy.

The first objectives of emergency

legislation of 1933 were to relieve

destitution, to make it possible for industry

to operate in a more rational and orderly

fashion, and to put behind industrial

recovery the impulse of large expenditures

in Government undertakings. The purpose

of the National Industrial Recovery Act to

provide work for more people succeeded

in a substantial manner within the first few

months of its life, and the Act has

continued to maintain employment gains

and greatly improved working conditions

in industry.

The program of public works provided for

in the Recovery Act launched the Federal

Government into a task for which there

was little time to make preparation and

little American experience to follow. Great

employment has been given and is being

given by these works.

More than two billions of dollars have also

been expended in direct relief to the

destitute. Local agencies of necessity

determined the recipients of this form of

relief. With inevitable exceptions the funds

were spent by them with reasonable

efficiency and as a result actual want of

food and clothing in the great majority of

cases has been overcome.

But the stark fact before us is that great

numbers still remain unemployed.

A large proportion of these unemployed

and their dependents have been forced on

the relief rolls. The burden on the Federal

Government has grown with great rapidity.

We have here a human as well as an

economic problem. When humane

considerations are concerned, Americans

give them precedence. The lessons of

history, confirmed by the evidence

immediately before me, show conclusively

that continued dependence upon relief

induces a spiritual and moral

disintegration fundamentally destructive to

the national fibre. To dole out relief in this

way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle

destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical

to the dictates of sound policy. It is in

violation of the traditions of America.

Work must be found for able-bodied but

destitute workers.

The Federal Government must and shall

quit this business of relief.

I am not willing that the vitality of our

people be further sapped by the giving of

cash, of market baskets, of a few hours of

weekly work cutting grass, raking leaves

or picking up .papers in the public parks.

We must preserve not only the bodies of

the unemployed from destitution but also

their self-respect, their self-reliance and

courage and determination. This decision

brings me to the problem of what the

Government should do with approximately

five million unemployed now on the relief

rolls.

About one million and a half of these

belong to the group which in the past was

dependent upon local welfare efforts. Most

of them are unable for one reason or

another to maintain themselves

independently--for the most part, through

no fault of their own. Such people, in the

days before the great depression, were

cared for by local efforts--by States, by

counties, by towns, by cities, by churches

and by private welfare agencies. It is my

thought that in the future they must be

cared for as they were before. I stand

ready through my own personal efforts,

and through the public influence of the

office that I hold, to help these local

agencies to get the means necessary to

assume this burden.

The security legislation which I shall

propose to the Congress will, I am

confident, be of assistance to local effort in

the care of this type of cases. Local

responsibility can and will be resumed,

for, after all, common sense tells us that

the wealth necessary for this task existed

and still exists in the local community, and

the dictates of sound administration

require that this responsibility be in the

first instance a local one. There are,

however, an additional three and one half

million employable people who are on

relief. With them the problem is different

and the responsibility is different. This

group was the victim of a nation-wide

depression caused by conditions which

were not local but national. The Federal

Government is the only governmental

agency with sufficient power and credit to

meet this situation. We have assumed this

task and we shall not shrink from it in the

future. It is a duty dictated by every

intelligent consideration of national policy

to ask you to make it possible for the

United States to give employment to all of

these three and one half million

employable people now on relief, pending

their absorption in a rising tide of private

employment.

It is my thought that with the exception of

certain of the normal public building

operations of the Government, all

emergency public works shall be united in

a single new and greatly enlarged plan.

With the establishment of this new system

we can supersede the Federal Emergency

Relief Administration with a coordinated

authority which will be charged with the

orderly liquidation of our present relief

activities and the substitution of a national

chart for the giving of work.

This new program of emergency public

employment should be governed by a

number of practical principles.

(1) All work undertaken should be useful--

not just for a day, or a year, but useful in

the sense that it affords permanent

improvement in living conditions or that it

creates future new wealth for the Nation.

(2) Compensation on emergency public

projects should be in the form of security

payments which should be larger than the

amount now received as a relief dole, but

at the same time not so large as to

encourage the rejection of opportunities

for private employment or the leaving of

private employment to engage in

Government work.

(3) Projects should be undertaken on

which a large percentage of direct labor

can be used.

(4) Preference should be given to those

projects which will be self-liquidating in

the sense that there is a reasonable

expectation that the Government will get

its money back at some future time.

(5) The projects undertaken should be

selected and planned so as to compete as

little as possible with private enterprises.

This suggests that if it were not for the

necessity of giving useful work to the

unemployed now on relief, these projects

in most instances would not now be

undertaken.

(6) The planning of projects would seek to

assure work during the coming fiscal year

to the individuals now on relief, or until

such time as private employment is

available. In order to make adjustment to

increasing private employment, work

should be planned with a view to tapering

it off in proportion to the speed with which

the emergency workers are offered

positions with private employers.

(7) Effort should be made to locate

projects where they will serve the greatest

unemployment needs as shown by present

relief rolls, and the broad program of the

National Resources Board should be freely

used for guidance in selection. Our

ultimate objective being the enrichment of

human lives, the Government has the

primary duty to use its emergency

expenditures as much as possible to serve

those who cannot secure the advantages of

private capital.

Ever since the adjournment of the 73d

Congress, the Administration has been

studying from every angle the possibility

and the practicability of new forms of

employment. As a result of these studies I

have arrived at certain very definite

convictions as to the amount of money that

will be necessary for the sort of public

projects that I have described. I shall

submit these figures in my budget

message. I assure you now they will be

within the sound credit of the Government.

The work itself will cover a wide field

including clearance of slums, which for

adequate reasons cannot be undertaken by

private capital; in rural housing of several

kinds, where, again, private capital is

unable to function; in rural electrification;

in the reforestation of the great watersheds

of the Nation; in an intensified program to

prevent soil erosion and to reclaim

blighted areas; in improving existing road

systems and in constructing national

highways designed to handle modern

traffic; in the elimination of grade

crossings; in the extension and

enlargement of the successful work of the

Civilian Conservation Corps; in non-

Federal works, mostly self-liquidating and

highly useful to local divisions of

Government; and on many other projects

which the Nation needs and cannot afford

to neglect.

This is the method which I propose to you

in order that we may better meet this

present-day problem of unemployment. Its

greatest advantage is that it fits logically

and usefully into the long-range permanent

policy of providing the three types of

security which constitute as a whole an

American plan for the betterment of the

future of the American people.

I shall consult with you from time to time

concerning other measures of national

importance. Among the subjects that lie

immediately before us are the

consolidation of Federal regulatory

administration over all forms of

transportation, the renewal and

clarification of the general purposes of the

National Industrial Recovery Act, the

strengthening of our facilities for the

prevention, detection and treatment of

crime and criminals, the restoration of

sound conditions in the public utilities

field through abolition of the evil features

of holding companies, the gradual tapering

off of the emergency credit activities of

Government, and improvement in our

taxation forms and methods.

We have already begun to feel the bracing

effect upon our economic system of a

restored agriculture. The hundreds of

millions of additional income that farmers

are receiving are finding their way into the

channels of trade. The farmers' share of

the national income is slowly rising. The

economic facts justify the widespread

opinion of those engaged in agriculture

that our provisions for maintaining a

balanced production give at this time the

most adequate remedy for an old and

vexing problem. For the present, and

especially in view of abnormal world

conditions, agricultural adjustment with

certain necessary improvements in

methods should continue.

It seems appropriate to call attention at this

time to the fine spirit shown during the

past year by our public servants. I cannot

praise too highly the cheerful work of the

Civil Service employees, and of those

temporarily working for the Government.

As for those thousands in our various

public agencies spread throughout the

country who, without compensation,

agreed to take over heavy responsibilities

in connection with our various loan

agencies and particularly in direct relief

work, I cannot say too much. I do not

think any country could show a higher

average of cheerful and even enthusiastic

team-work than has been shown by these

men and women.

I cannot with candor tell you that general

international relationships outside the

borders of the United States are improved.

On the surface of things many old

jealousies are resurrected, old passions

aroused; new strivings for armament and

power, in more than one land, rear their

ugly heads. I hope that calm counsel and

constructive leadership will provide the

steadying influence and the time necessary

for the coming of new and more practical

forms of representative government

throughout the world wherein privilege

and power will occupy a lesser place and

world welfare a greater.

I believe, however, that our own peaceful

and neighborly attitude toward other

Nations is coming to be understood and

appreciated. The maintenance of

international peace is a matter in which we

are deeply and unselfishly concerned.

Evidence of our persistent and undeniable

desire to prevent armed conflict has

recently been more than once afforded.

There is no ground for apprehension that

our relations with any Nation will be

otherwise than peaceful. Nor is there

ground for doubt that the people of most

Nations seek relief from the threat and

burden attaching to the false theory that

extravagant armament cannot be reduced

and limited by international accord.

The ledger of the past year shows many

more gains than losses. Let us not forget

that, in addition to saving millions from

utter destitution, child labor has been for

the moment outlawed, thousands of homes

saved to their owners and most important

of all, the morale of the Nation has been

restored. Viewing the year 1934 as a

whole, you and I can agree that we have a

generous measure of reasons for giving

thanks.

It is not empty optimism that moves me to

a strong hope in the coming year. We can,

if we will, make 1935 a genuine period of

good feeling, sustained by a sense of

purposeful progress. Beyond the material

recovery, I sense a spiritual recovery as

well. The people of America are turning as

never before to those permanent values

that are not limited to the physical

objectives of life. There are growing signs

of this on every hand. In the face of these

spiritual impulses we are sensible of the

Divine Providence to which Nations turn

now, as always, for guidance and fostering

care.

President Grover Cleveland: State of the Union

Message (1887) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29528

To the Congress of the United States:

You are confronted at the threshold of

your legislative duties with a condition of

the national finances which imperatively

demands immediate and careful

consideration.

The amount of money annually exacted,

through the operation of present laws,

from the industries and necessities of the

people largely exceeds the sum necessary

to meet the expenses of the Government.

When we consider that the theory of our

institutions guarantees to every citizen the

full enjoyment of all the fruits of his

industry and enterprise, with only such

deduction as may be his share toward the

careful and economical maintenance of the

Government which protects him, it is plain

that the exaction of more than this is

indefensible extortion and a culpable

betrayal of American fairness and justice.

This wrong inflicted upon those who bear

the burden of national taxation, like other

wrongs, multiplies a brood of evil

consequences. The public Treasury, which

should only exist as a conduit conveying

the people's tribute to its legitimate objects

of expenditure, becomes a hoarding place

for money needlessly withdrawn from

trade and the people's use, thus crippling

our national energies, suspending our

country's development, preventing

investment in productive enterprise,

threatening financial disturbance, and

inviting schemes of public plunder.

This condition of our Treasury is not

altogether new, and it has more than once

of late been submitted to the people's

representatives in the Congress, who alone

can apply a remedy. And yet the situation

still continues, with aggravated incidents,

more than ever presaging financial

convulsion and widespread disaster.

It will not do to neglect this situation

because its dangers are not now palpably

imminent and apparent. They exist none

the less certainly, and await the unforeseen

and unexpected occasion when suddenly

they will be precipitated upon us.

On the 30th day of June, 1885, the excess

of revenues over public expenditures, after

complying with the annual requirement of

the sinking-fund act, was $17,859,735.84;

during the year ended June 30, 1886, such

excess amounted to $49,405,545.20, and

during the year ended June 30, 1887, it

reached the sum of $55,567,849.54.

The annual contributions to the sinking

fund during the three years above

specified, amounting in the aggregate to

$138,058,320.94, and deducted from the

surplus as stated, were made by calling in

for that purpose outstanding 3 per cent

bonds of the Government. During the six

months prior to June 30, 1887, the surplus

revenue had grown so large by repeated

accumulations, and it was feared the

withdrawal of this great sum of money

needed by the people would so affect the

business of the country, that the sum of

$79,864,100 of such surplus was applied

to the payment of the principal and interest

of the 3 per cent bonds still outstanding,

and which were then payable at the option

of the Government. The precarious

condition of financial affairs among the

people still needing relief, immediately

after the 30th day of June, 1887, the

remainder of the 3 per cent bonds then

outstanding, amounting with principal and

interest to the sum of $18,877,500, were

called in and applied to the sinking-fund

contribution for the current fiscal year.

Notwithstanding these operations of the

Treasury Department, representations of

distress in business circles not only

continued, but increased, and absolute

peril seemed at hand. In these

circumstances the contribution to the

sinking fund for the current fiscal year was

at once completed by the expenditure of

$27,684,283.55 in the purchase of

Government bonds not yet due bearing 4

and 41/2 per cent interest, the premium

paid thereon averaging about 24 per cent

for the former and 8 per cent for the latter.

In addition to this, the interest accruing

during the current year upon the

outstanding bonded indebtedness of the

Government was to some extent

anticipated, and banks selected as

depositories of public money were

permitted to somewhat increase their

deposits.

While the expedients thus employed to

release to the people the money lying idle

in the Treasury served to avert immediate

danger, our surplus revenues have

continued to accumulate, the excess for the

present year amounting on the 1st day of

December to $55,258,701.19, and

estimated to reach the sum of

$113,000,000 on the 30th of June next, at

which date it is expected that this sum,

added to prior accumulations, will swell

the surplus in the Treasury to

$140,000,000.

There seems to be no assurance that, with

such a withdrawal from use of the people's

circulating medium, our business

community may not in the near future be

subjected to the same distress which was

quite lately produced from the same cause.

And while the functions of our National

Treasury should be few and simple, and

while its best condition would be reached,

I believe, by its entire disconnection with

private business interests, yet when, by a

perversion of its purposes, it idly holds

money uselessly subtracted from the

channels of trade, there seems to be reason

for the claim that some legitimate means

should be devised by the Government to

restore in an emergency, without waste or

extravagance, such money to its place

among the people.

If such an emergency arises, there now

exists no clear and undoubted executive

power of relief. Heretofore the redemption

of 3 per cent bonds, which were payable at

the option of the Government, has

afforded a means for the disbursement of

the excess of our revenues; but these

bonds have all been retired, and there are

no bonds outstanding the payment of

which we have a right to insist upon. The

contribution to the sinking fund which

furnishes the occasion for expenditure in

the purchase of bonds has been already

made for the current year, so that there is

no outlet in that direction.

In the present state of legislation the only

pretense of any existing executive power

to restore at this time any part of our

surplus revenues to the people by its

expenditure consists in the supposition that

the Secretary of the Treasury may enter

the market and purchase the bonds of the

Government not yet due, at a rate of

premium to be agreed upon. The only

provision of law from which such a power

could be derived is found in an

appropriation bill passed a number of

years ago, and it is subject to the suspicion

that it was intended as temporary and

limited in its application, instead of

conferring a continuing discretion and

authority. No condition ought to exist

which would justify the grant of power to

a single official, upon his judgment of its

necessity, to withhold from or release to

the business of the people, in an unusual

manner, money held in the Treasury, and

thus affect at his will the financial

situation of the country; and if it is deemed

wise to lodge in the Secretary of the

Treasury the authority in the present

juncture to purchase bonds, it should be

plainly vested, and provided, as far as

possible, with such checks and limitations

as will define this official's right and

discretion and at the same time relieve him

from undue responsibility.

In considering the question of purchasing

bonds as a means of restoring to

circulation the surplus money

accumulating in the Treasury, it should be

borne in mind that premiums must of

course be paid upon such purchase, that

there may be a large part of these bonds

held as investments which can not be

purchased at any price, and that

combinations among holders who are

willing to sell may unreasonably enhance

the cost of such bonds to the Government.

It has been suggested that the present

bonded debt might be refunded at a less

rate of interest and the difference between

the old and new security paid in cash, thus

finding use for the surplus in the Treasury.

The success of this plan, it is apparent,

must depend upon the volition of the

holders of the present bonds; and it is not

entirely certain that the inducement which

must be offered them would result in more

financial benefit to the Government than

the purchase of bonds, while the latter

proposition would reduce the principal of

the debt by actual payment instead of

extending it.

The proposition to deposit the money held

by the Government in banks throughout

the country for use by the people is, it

seems to me, exceedingly objectionable in

principle, as establishing too close a

relationship between the operations of the

Government Treasury and the business of

the country and too extensive a

commingling of their money, thus

fostering an unnatural reliance in private

business upon public funds. If this scheme

should be adopted, it should only be done

as a temporary expedient to meet an urgent

necessity. Legislative and executive effort

should generally be in the opposite

direction, and should have a tendency to

divorce, as much and as fast as can be

safely done, the Treasury Department from

private enterprise.

Of course it is not expected that

unnecessary and extravagant

appropriations will be made for the

purpose of avoiding the accumulation of

an excess of revenue. Such expenditure,

besides the demoralization of all just

conceptions of public duty which it entails,

stimulates a habit of reckless

improvidence not in the least consistent

with the mission of our people or the high

and beneficent purposes of our

Government.

I have deemed it my duty to thus bring to

the knowledge of my countrymen, as well

as to the attention of their representatives

charged with the responsibility of

legislative relief, the gravity of our

financial situation. The failure of the

Congress heretofore to provide against the

dangers which it was quite evident the

very nature of the difficulty must

necessarily produce caused a condition of

financial distress and apprehension since

your last adjournment which taxed to the

utmost all the authority and expedients

within executive control; and these appear

now to be exhausted. If disaster results

from the continued inaction of Congress,

the responsibility must rest where it

belongs.

Though the situation thus far considered is

fraught with danger which should be fully

realized, and though it presents features of

wrong to the people as well as peril to the

country, it is but a result growing out of a

perfectly palpable and apparent cause,

constantly reproducing the same alarming

circumstances--a congested National

Treasury and a depleted monetary

condition in the business of the country. It

need hardly be stated that while the

present situation demands a remedy, we

can only be saved from a like predicament

in the future by the removal of its cause.

Our scheme of taxation, by means of

which this needless surplus is taken from

the people and put into the public

Treasury, consists of a tariff or duty levied

upon importations from abroad and

internal-revenue taxes levied upon the

consumption of tobacco and spirituous and

malt liquors. It must be conceded that none

of the things subjected to internal-revenue

taxation are, strictly speaking, necessaries.

There appears to be no just complaint of

this taxation by the consumers of these

articles, and there seems to be nothing so

well able to bear the burden without

hardship to any portion of the people.

But our present tariff laws, the vicious,

inequitable, and illogical source of

unnecessary taxation, ought to be at once

revised and amended. These laws, as their

primary and plain effect, raise the price to

consumers of all articles imported and

subject to duty by precisely the sum paid

for such duties. Thus the amount of the

duty measures the tax paid by those who

purchase for use these imported articles.

Many of these things, however, are raised

or manufactured in our own country, and

the duties now levied upon foreign goods

and products are called protection to these

home manufactures, because they render it

possible for those of our people who are

manufacturers to make these taxed articles

and sell them for a price equal to that

demanded for the imported goods that

have paid customs duty. So it happens that

while comparatively a few use the

imported articles, millions of our people,

who never used and never saw any of the

foreign products, purchase and use things

of the same kind made in this country, and

pay therefor nearly or quite the same

enhanced price which the duty adds to the

imported articles. Those who buy imports

pay the duty charged thereon into the

public Treasury, but the great majority of

our citizens, who buy domestic articles of

the same class, pay a sum at least

approximately equal to this duty to the

home manufacturer. This reference to the

operation of our tariff laws is not made by

way of instruction, but in order that we

may be constantly reminded of the manner

in which they impose a burden upon those

who consume domestic products as well as

those who consume imported articles, and

thus create a tax upon all our people.

It is not proposed to entirely relieve the

country of this taxation. It must be

extensively continued as the source of the

Government's income; and in a

readjustment of our tariff the interests of

American labor engaged in manufacture

should be carefully considered, as well as

the preservation of our manufacturers. It

may be called protection or by any other

name, but relief from the hardships and

dangers of our present tariff laws should

be devised with especial precaution

against imperiling the existence of our

manufacturing interests. But this existence

should not mean a condition which,

without regard to the public welfare or a

national exigency, must always insure the

realization of immense profits instead of

moderately profitable returns. As the

volume and diversity of our national

activities increase, new recruits are added

to those who desire a continuation of the

advantages which they conceive the

present system of tariff taxation directly

affords them. So stubbornly have all

efforts to reform the present condition

been resisted by those of our fellow-

citizens thus engaged that they can hardly

complain of the suspicion, entertained to a

certain extent, that there exists an

organized combination all along the line to

maintain their advantage.

We are in the midst of centennial

celebrations, and with becoming pride we

rejoice in American skill and ingenuity, in

American energy and enterprise, and in the

wonderful natural advantages and

resources developed by a century's

national growth. Yet when an attempt is

made to justify a scheme which permits a

tax to be laid upon every consumer in the

land for the benefit of our manufacturers,

quite beyond a reasonable demand for

governmental regard, it suits the purposes

of advocacy to call our manufactures

infant industries still needing the highest

and greatest degree of favor and fostering

care that can be wrung from Federal

legislation.

It is also said that the increase in the price

of domestic manufactures resulting from

the present tariff is necessary in order that

higher wages may be paid to our

workingmen employed in manufactories

than are paid for what is called the pauper

labor of Europe. All will acknowledge the

force of an argument which involves the

welfare and liberal compensation of our

laboring people. Our labor is honorable in

the eyes of every American citizen; and as

it lies at the foundation of our

development and progress, it is entitled,

without affectation or hypocrisy, to the

utmost regard. The standard of our

laborers' life should not be measured by

that of any other country less favored, and

they are entitled to their full share of all

our advantages.

By the last census it is made to appear that

of the 17,392,099 of our population

engaged in all kinds of industries

7,670,493 are employed in agriculture,

4,074,238 in professional and personal

service (2,934,876 of whom are domestic

servants and laborers), while 1,810,256 are

employed in trade and transportation and

3,837,112 are classed as employed in

manufacturing and mining.

For present purposes, however, the last

number given should be considerably

reduced. Without attempting to enumerate

all, it will be conceded that there should be

deducted from those which it includes

375,143 carpenters and joiners, 285,401

milliners, dressmakers, and seamstresses,

172,726 blacksmiths, 133,756 tailors and

tailoresses, 102,473 masons, 76,241

butchers, 41,309 bakers, 22,083 plasterers,

and 4,891 engaged in manufacturing

agricultural implements, amounting in the

aggregate to 1,214,023, leaving 2,623,089

persons employed in such manufacturing

industries as are claimed to be benefited

by a high tariff.

To these the appeal is made to save their

employment and maintain their wages by

resisting a change. There should be no

disposition to answer such suggestions by

the allegation that they are in a minority

among those who labor, and therefore

should forego an advantage in the interest

of low prices for the majority. Their

compensation, as it may be affected by the

operation of tariff laws, should at all times

be scrupulously kept in view; and yet with

slight reflection they will not overlook the

fact that they are consumers with the rest;

that they too have their own wants and

those of their families to supply from their

earnings, and that the price of the

necessaries of life, as well as the amount

of their wages, will regulate the measure

of their welfare and comfort.

But the reduction of taxation demanded

should be so measured as not to

necessitate or justify either the loss of

employment by the workingman or the

lessening of his wages; and the profits still

remaining to the manufacturer after a

necessary readjustment should furnish no

excuse for the sacrifice of the interests of

his employees, either in their opportunity

to work or in the diminution of their

compensation. Nor can the worker in

manufactures fail to understand that while

a high tariff is claimed to be necessary to

allow the payment of remunerative wages,

it certainly results in a very large increase

in the price of nearly all sorts of

manufactures, which, in almost countless

forms, he needs for the use of himself and

his family. He receives at the desk of his

employer his wages, and perhaps before he

reaches his home is obliged, in a purchase

for family use of an article which

embraces his own labor, to return in the

payment of the increase in price which the

tariff permits the hard-earned

compensation of many days of toil.

The farmer and the agriculturist, who

manufacture nothing, but who pay the

increased price which the tariff imposes

upon every agricultural implement, upon

all he wears, and upon all he uses and

owns, except the increase of his flocks and

herds and such things as his husbandry

produces from the soil, is invited to aid in

maintaining the present situation; and he is

told that a high duty on imported wool is

necessary for the benefit of those who

have sheep to shear, in order that the price

of their wool may be increased. They, of

course, are not reminded that the farmer

who has no sheep is by this scheme

obliged, in his purchases of clothing and

woolen goods, to pay a tribute to his

fellow-farmer as well as to the

manufacturer and merchant, nor is any

mention made of the fact that the sheep

owners themselves and their households

must wear clothing and use other articles

manufactured from the wool they sell at

tariff prices, and thus as consumers must

return their share of this increased price to

the tradesman.

I think it may be fairly assumed that a

large proportion of the sheep owned by the

farmers throughout the country are found

in small flocks, numbering from twenty-

five to fifty. The duty on the grade of

imported wool which these sheep yield is

10 cents each pound if of the value of 30

cents or less and 12 cents if of the value of

more than 30 cents. If the liberal estimate

of 6 pounds be allowed for each fleece, the

duty thereon would be 60 or 72 cents; and

this may be taken as the utmost

enhancement of its price to the farmer by

reason of this duty. Eighteen dollars would

thus represent the increased price of the

wool from twenty-five sheep and $36 that

from the wool of fifty sheep; and at

present values this addition would amount

to about one-third of its price. If upon its

sale the farmer receives this or a less tariff

profit, the wool leaves his hands charged

with precisely that sum, which in all its

changes will adhere to it until it reaches

the consumer. When manufactured into

cloth and other goods and material for use,

its cost is not only increased to the extent

of the farmer's tariff profit, but a further

sum has been added for the benefit of the

manufacturer under the operation of other

tariff laws. In the meantime the day arrives

when the farmer finds it necessary to

purchase woolen goods and material to

clothe himself and family for the winter.

When he faces the tradesman for that

purpose, he discovers that he is obliged not

only to return in the way of increased

prices his tariff profit on the wool he sold,

and which then perhaps lies before him in

manufactured form, but that he must add a

considerable sum thereto to meet a further

increase in cost caused by a tariff duty on

the manufacture. Thus in the end he is

aroused to the fact that he has paid upon a

moderate purchase, as a result of the tariff

scheme, which when he sold his wool

seemed so profitable, an increase in price

more than sufficient to sweep away all the

tariff profit he received upon the wool he

produced and sold.

When the number of farmers engaged in

wool raising is compared with all the

farmers in the country and the small

proportion they bear to our population is

considered; when it is made apparent that

in the case of a large part of those who

own sheep the benefit of the present tariff

on wool is illusory; and, above all, when it

must be conceded that the increase of the

cost of living caused by such tariff

becomes a burden upon those with

moderate means and the poor, the

employed and unemployed, the sick and

well, and the young and old, and that it

constitutes a tax which with relentless

grasp is fastened upon the clothing of

every man, woman, and child in the land,

reasons are suggested why the removal or

reduction of this duty should be included

in a revision of our tariff laws.

In speaking of the increased cost to the

consumer of our home manufactures

resulting from a duty laid upon imported

articles of the same description, the fact is

not ever looked that competition among

our domestic producers sometimes has the

effect of keeping the price of their

products below the highest limit allowed

by such duty. But it is notorious that this

competition is too often strangled by

combinations quite prevalent at this time,

and frequently called trusts, which have

for their object the regulation of the supply

and price of commodities made and sold

by members of the combination. The

people can hardly hope for any

consideration in the operation of these

selfish schemes.

If, however, in the absence of such

combination, a healthy and free

competition reduces the price of any

particular dutiable article of home

production below the limit which it might

otherwise reach under our tariff laws, and

if with such reduced price its manufacture

continues to thrive, it is entirely evident

that one thing has been discovered which

should be carefully scrutinized in an effort

to reduce taxation.

The necessity of combination to maintain

the price of any commodity to the tariff

point furnishes proof that someone is

willing to accept lower prices for such

commodity and that such prices are

remunerative; and lower prices produced

by competition prove the same thing. Thus

where either of these conditions exists a

case would seem to be presented for an

easy reduction of taxation.

The considerations which have been

presented touching our tariff laws are

intended only to enforce an earnest

recommendation that the surplus revenues

of the Government be prevented by the

reduction of our customs duties, and at the

same time to emphasize a suggestion that

in accomplishing this purpose we may

discharge a double duty to our people by

granting to them a measure of relief from

tariff taxation in quarters where it is most

needed and from sources where it can be

most fairly and justly accorded.

Nor can the presentation made of such

considerations be with any degree of

fairness regarded as evidence of

unfriendliness toward our manufacturing

interests or of any lack of appreciation of

their value and importance.

These interests constitute a leading and

most substantial element of our national

greatness and furnish the proud proof of

our country's progress. But if in the

emergency that presses upon us our

manufacturers are asked to surrender

something for the public good and to avert

disaster, their patriotism, as well as a

grateful recognition of advantages already

afforded, should lead them to willing

cooperation. No demand is made that they

shall forego all the benefits of

governmental regard; but they can not fail

to be admonished of their duty, as well as

their enlightened self-interest and safety,

when they are reminded of the fact that

financial panic and collapse, to which the

present condition tends, afford no greater

shelter or protection to our manufactures

than to other important enterprises.

Opportunity for safe, careful, and

deliberate reform is now offered; and none

of us should be unmindful of a time when

an abused and irritated people, heedless of

those who have resisted timely and

reasonable relief, may insist upon a radical

and sweeping rectification of their wrongs.

The difficulty attending a wise and fair

revision of our tariff laws is not

underestimated. It will require on the part

of the Congress great labor and care, and

especially a broad and national

contemplation of the subject and a

patriotic disregard of such local and selfish

claims as are unreasonable and reckless of

the welfare of the entire country.

Under our present laws more than 4,000

articles are subject to duty. Many of these

do not in any way compete with our own

manufactures, and many are hardly worth

attention as subjects of revenue. A

considerable reduction can be made in the

aggregate by adding them to the free list.

The taxation of luxuries presents no

features of hardship; but the necessaries of

life used and consumed by all the people,

the duty upon which adds to the cost of

living in every home, should be greatly

cheapened.

The radical reduction of the duties

imposed upon raw material used in

manufactures, or its free importation, is of

course an important factor in any effort to

reduce the price of these necessaries. It

would not only relieve them from the

increased cost caused by the tariff on such

material, but the manufactured product

being thus cheapened that part of the tariff

now laid upon such product, as a

compensation to our manufacturers for the

present price of raw material, could be

accordingly modified. Such reduction or

free importation would serve besides to

largely reduce the revenue. It is not

apparent how such a change can have any

injurious effect upon our manufacturers.

On the contrary, it would appear to give

them a better chance in foreign markets

with the manufacturers of other countries,

who cheapen their wares by free material.

Thus our people might have the

opportunity of extending their sales

beyond the limits of home consumption,

saving them from the depression,

interruption in business, and loss caused

by a glutted domestic market and affording

their employees more certain and steady

labor, with its resulting quiet and

contentment.

The question thus imperatively presented

for solution should be approached in a

spirit higher than partisanship and

considered in the light of that regard for

patriotic duty which should characterize

the action of those intrusted with the weal

of a confiding people. But the obligation to

declared party policy and principle is not

wanting to urge prompt and effective

action. Both of the great political parties

now represented in the Government have

by repeated and authoritative declarations

condemned the condition of our laws

which permit the collection from the

people of unnecessary revenue, and have

in the most solemn manner promised its

correction; and neither as citizens nor

partisans are our countrymen in a mood to

condone the deliberate violation of these

pledges.

Our progress toward a wise conclusion

will not be improved by dwelling upon the

theories of protection and free trade. This

savors too much of bandying epithets. It is

a condition which confronts us, not a

theory. Relief from this condition may

involve a slight reduction of the

advantages which we award our home

productions, but the entire withdrawal of

such advantages should not be

contemplated. The question of free trade is

absolutely irrelevant, and the persistent

claim made in certain quarters that all the

efforts to relieve the people from unjust

and unnecessary taxation are schemes of

so-called free traders is mischievous and

far removed from any consideration for the

public good.

The simple and plain duty which we owe

the people is to reduce taxation to the

necessary expenses of an economical

operation of the Government and to restore

to the business of the country the money

which we hold in the Treasury through the

perversion of governmental powers. These

things can and should be done with safety

to all our industries, without danger to the

opportunity for remunerative labor which

our workingmen need, and with benefit to

them and all our people by cheapening

their means of subsistence and increasing

the measure of their comforts.

The Constitution provides that the

President "shall from time to time give to

the Congress information of the state of

the Union." It has been the custom of the

Executive, in compliance with this

provision, to annually exhibit to the

Congress, at the opening of its session, the

general condition of the country, and to

detail with some particularity the

operations of the different Executive

Departments. It would be especially

agreeable to follow this course at the

present time and to call attention to the

valuable accomplishments of these

Departments during the last fiscal year; but

I am so much impressed with the

paramount importance of the subject to

which this communication has thus far

been devoted that I shall forego the

addition of any other topic, and only urge

upon your immediate consideration the

"state of the Union" as shown in the

present condition of our Treasury and our

general fiscal situation, upon which every

element of our safety and prosperity

depends.

The reports of the heads of Departments,

which will be submitted, contain full and

explicit information touching the

transaction of the business intrusted to

them and such recommendations relating

to legislation in the public interest as they

deem advisable. I ask for these reports and

recommendations the deliberate

examination and action of the legislative

branch of the Government.

There are other subjects not embraced in

the departmental reports demanding

legislative consideration, and which I

should be glad to submit. Some of them,

however, have been earnestly presented in

previous messages, and as to them I beg

leave to repeat prior recommendations.

As the law makes no provision for any

report from the Department of State, a

brief history of the transactions of that

important Department, together with other

matters which it may hereafter be deemed

essential to commend to the attention of

the Congress, may furnish the occasion for

a future communication.

Evidence for the Jon Stewart Hypothesis STEVEN L. TAYLOR

WEDNESDAY, JULY 6, 2011

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/evidence-for-the-jon-stewart-hypothesis/

Back when Jon Stewart was on Fox News Sunday he said:

„The bias of the mainstream media is towards sensationalism, conflict and laziness.”

Doug Mataconis’s post that noted Casey Anthony Trial Got More News Coverage Than GOP Candidates reminded me of the above.

I generally share James Joyner’s attitude on these kinds of stories (which is why, like my co-bloggers here at OTB I have not mentioned the trial prior to now).

However, if we think about Stewart’s assertion about the mainstream media and criminal trials like those of Casey Anthony, he see the bias in question in action.

There is little doubt that the death of a small child by itself is sensationalistic. Throw in a missing

persons report, an attractive, partying mother, and goodness knows what other details I am blissfully unaware of and you certainly meet this first criterion.

How about conflict? Well, by definition, our court system is an adversarial one. So, conflict’s a go. Plus you have a number of family members and whatnot to cry on the stand/hurl accusations. Heck, that’s conflict squared. And laziness? What could be easier than airing live footage of a trial and finding a few lawyers to opine on air about the subject? Further, it isn’t as if a this kind of story requires a lot of audience education. This strikes me

as practically not having to work (from the MSM’s POV). It is certainly easier than covering some far flung foreign location or dealing with the complexities of quantitative easing or even dealing with the platforms of the various presidential contenders.

There is also another key element to this MSM bias that Stewart’s formulation does not cover: viewers tend to like these kinds of stories. It is a basic market function going on here.

However, in terms of Stewart’s argument, I think we can see the dynamic rather clearly.