Email 8
From R
I'm a journalism student (in the infancy
of my education), attending college in Alabama. I have spent the
better part of today perusing your great site. I am so happy to
have found this wealth of information all in one place. I must
admit that I've been experiencing much anxiety about my journalism
career. I love to write, and I enjoy learning about other cultures
and the world outside of America; since I didn't wish to be just
another English major, I thought journalism was the way to go.
My fear, however, was this: would I be doomed to only find work
in the mass-media world, being a "spin doctor", a reporter
with no integrity who regurgitates whatever the government encourages
or the profit-driven media outlets demand? I would rather deliver
pizzas and just let my writing be done only in my diary (or blog,
nowadays!) than sell my journalistic soul. Many (most, it seems)
of my peers in the Communications department are majoring in such
things as PR (to make money and/or get close to celebrity, they
say) or have dreams of being anchors for the local news. I was
beginning to wonder if I was strange or something. I want to report
on the stories that no one hears on the news, to use journalism
to expose lies, fight injustice, help others (or at least bring
understanding to their plight), and be a voice for those who have
no voice, and blah blah, all that other idealistic nonesense that
is just part of the naivete of youth (or so I'm led to believe).
In other words, to make people listen to what they would rather
forget is happening all around them! Given the collective mood
of our nation these days, I wondered if anyone cared for that
sort of thing anymore. Believe me, people have laughed at me when
I tell them what sort of journalism I'd like to be involved in.
I hear things like "Oh, why would you want to do that?"
or "Well you'll never make any money that way!" My mother-in-law
even said "Foreign correspondent? You won't be able to do
that around here [meaning Alabama], will you?" When I told
her no, I would be required to travel, she seemed bewildered as
to why anyone would willingly get involved in such a field! Anyway,
my point to all this rambling is to thank you for creating ThirdWorldTraveller
and compiling all this great information. It has really helped
me, as well as given me hope and shown me that I'm not alone in
feeling that something is amiss with the way the news is reported
here in America. After reading some of the book excerpts (interestingly,
Amusing Ourselves to Death will be required reading for one of
my higher-level courses), I realize that work as a foreign correspondent
is dwindling along with the public's interest in matters from
abroad, but I hope that I'm preparing myself well for the opportunity
should it arise. I'm getting as many languages under my belt as
possible, some political science, and of course a lot of history
(of which I am fond and must admit do well in). I have already
learned a lot from this great site and look forward to learning
more! Finally, I was wondering if you could tell me just a little
about yourself...for instance, how did you get the idea to start
ThirdWorldTraveler, and what sort of journalism experience do
you have? It would just be interesting to know, because whoever
created this site seems like they would be a very cool person!
(Persons?) Thanks for your time!
___
Steve's reply
This uncool person started TWT in 1994,
initially to provide difficult-to-find travel information for
international travelers. But, I quickly realized that my real
interest lay in understanding how the policies of First World
countries, particularly the US, impacted the Third World/underdeveloped
countries of the world (many of which I have traveled to over
the years).
I wanted to put in one place, information
about US foreign policy from a perspective not found in the US
mainstream media - an independent view - the view of the losers
of globalization, of free trade, of humanitarian intervention,
of our energy policy, rather than of the winners with whom our
media are overwhelmingly focused and our government's policies
are overwhelmingly oriented. In the process, the state of American
democracy and corporate media joined foreign policy as primary
focuses of my website, because they are intimately intertwined
with the foreign policy of the U.S. government.
I have no journalism background and I
am not a writer, but I am an avid reader, and I have become a
student of U.S. policy, not the stuff we learn in school and
are exposed to in the mainstream media, but the truth about empire
and its costs, to us and to Third World peoples.
My heroes are the journalists and writers
who spend their lives trying (with great difficulty) to inform
us about the reality of the policies of the countries of the industrialized
world - our world - and the suffering and immiseration these policies
have caused for generations, the Iraq War being but one example.
My heroes include Noam Chomsky, Howard
Zinn, William Blum, Michael Parenti, John Pilger, Robert Fisk,
and scores of others about whom Americans do not have the faintest
knowledge, because these authors and journalists are marginalized,
kept out off of TV and radio, and out of newspapers and magazines,
because they are considered subversive - they tell the truth.
TWT is a work in progress (I add material
almost daily). Remember the movie 'Field of Dreams' with Kevin
Kostner? The subtitle was "If you build it, they will come".
Well, I built it (TWT), and they (Internet users) are beginning
to come.
My hope is that more peope will be exposed
to this material, and as a result, they will begin to agitate
for changes in this country's policies.
Good luck to you in your pursuit of success
and truth. Keep visiting TWT.
***
From D
I just stumbled across your site while
searching on "howard zinn". It appears to be a healthy
repository of important information, and I commend you for hoisting
it up for folks to see.
I'm especially grateful for the Afghanistan
page. Sadly ... extremely goddamn sadly ... it seems very few
persons who rightly and righteously condemn the horror of US actions
in Iraq consider the invasion and
occupation of Afghanistan an equal abomination ... if they think
about it at all. Some even appear to support it, at least passively,
as a "just war" (a non sequitur par excellence).
Hard to fathom ... has that been your
experience, as well? I'll be sure to steer folks to your site.
___
Steve's reply
Sadly, Americans are too uninformed to
know what their government is doing in the world. Afghanistan
is just one of the U.S.'s foreign policy debacles that the American
people ignore because the media tell them to ignore it. The suffering
of Afghanis (and Iraqis, and Angolans, and Haitians, ....) will
continue because Americans don't know that they are suffering,
or, don't want to know that they are suffering, at the hands of
our government, funded by our taxes, and supported by our votes..
George Orwell said, "The people will
believe what the media tell them they believe".
The U.S. mainstream media conglomerates,
the CEOs who run them, the celebrity "journalists" who
read the "news" to the public and depend on the media
CEOs to employ them and government officals and VIPs to give them
access, are all part of a totalitarian-like system of disinformation
and self-censorship that, in 21st century America, with its high-tech
Disneyland and its "information superhighway", produces
Americans who don't know where Afghanistan is until a U.S. or
israeli bomb marks the spot for them. And then, the celebrity
"journalists", who have bought in to the propaganda
system lock, stock, and barrel, will explain to us why the vaporization
of a country and its people was not only a good thing, but necessary
to keep America safe from marauding anti-American mujihadeen who
hate our TVs, SUVs, and iPods.
It is up to alternative media to get the
stories out, and because alternative media has no money and isn't
on prime time TV, Americans will continue to be frightened and
manipulated by a political elite (and their media handmaidens)
whose agenda is very different from that of most decent human
beings.
At present, alternative media is the only
hope of getting a different message to enough Americans to make
them "mad as hell", and willing to do something about
it. We can only keep trying.
***
From S
Your website (http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/)
does a pretty lousy job of attempting to be truthful and has a
very obvious (and frequently contradictory) slant. There are MANY
alternative views to what the media shows us and you choose to
primarily present a radically progressive take on history and
current events. And the famous thinkers you've decided to quote
are relatively mainstream, so what is it that is so alternative
to your view? Some of the information on your website is relevant.
Some of it is not. I would think that reading a book by one of
the quoted personages would be more enlightening than reading
your hodgepodge quotations and "facts".
What I see is merely your personal expression
of what you vaguely interpret as a "righteous cause"
against those you perceive as "misguided conservatives"
or more simply put - "the other". You're not much better
than FOX news or CNN and the content of your site is only marginally
more worthwhile. If you would like to be taken more seriously,
it may be a better idea for you to write your own book and reference
various authors. Explain with reasonable logic how you have come
to your conclusion. All I see now is a shaky bottom line with
no real substance. You might want to rethink your approach. Anyway,
good luck with whatever it is you would like to believe in and
accomplish. I recommend writing a book - otherwise I don't think
well-educated people will take you very seriously.
___
Steve's reply
TWT provides voices that offer a progressive
perspective on events, as an alternative to the US mainstream
media, which should more accurately be called the "disinformation,
prowar, procorporate, antidemocracy media".
Although you may not find the quotations
valuable, many TWT visitors do. I believe it is not yet un-American
to think - critically, and quotations can sometimes jog us into
looking at things from a new perspective.
I do not have the talent to write a book,
but a tour through the TWT website makes it clear that there are
many people who do.
Please don't put the thoughtful discussion
and commentary by informed authors on TWT on the same level as
Fox News, a network of talking heads and pundits who wouldn't
know the truth or recognize a balanced discussion if they tripped
over it.
I have read hundreds of books and thousands
of articles over the last 12 years that have provided me with
a pretty clear idea about how the world works and how the American
system functions, about who has the power, how they weld it, and
what results from their actions, about how few principles politicians
really have, and about how the desire for wealth and power drives
some of our elected leaders and their henchmen to do almost anything
to get it and keep it.
I don't expect most people to spend the
time and effort to do what I have done. But, if people really
want to be informed citizens of the most powerful country in the
history of the world, they need to recognize that there is something
very wrong in America, that we are going in the wrong direction,
that we are hurting an awful lot of people in the world, and that
we are ignorant of the truth because we have been so dumbed-down
by the right-wing propaganda fed to us day after day by the mainstream
media.
***
From BV
Love the website! Just found it. The quotes
are a magnificent resource
A quick comment about your email discussion
regarding Portuguese fascist dictator Salazar, in which the emailer
relates that his father preferred not to talk about what kinds
of policies and actions the Salazar regime implemented because
he thought it best to leave the past behind.
Oh beware of those who wish to leave the
past behind by enforcing and maintaining silence about it! Such
silence is the tool of those who prefer to be blind to its lessons,
its sadnesses, its horrors and its
indignities as well as its joys, inventions and the nature and
lives of its genius and geniuses, the cutting edge of human evolution
and perhaps our only hope!
Forgetting the past means refusing to
integrate it into the present, at least on a conscious level.
The past is a strict and insistent teamster that turns drunken
and unbearably cruel if the horses of human progress attempt to
ignore it. It is unlikely to loosen its hold on the harness merely
because the team fails to recognize the lessons of the road that
re-appear in myriad variations as the trip continues.
Forgetting the past is the siren call
of the dictator and the stooge, the schizoid and the professional
life-long drunkard. It is the plea of the wife beater and his
accomplice masochist. It is the refuge of the
hopelessly damaged and the personality disordered, and it will
always result in failure, doom and intentional or unintentional
suicide of the body, spirit, mind, or all three.
Paying attention to the past is perhaps
the only available key that unlocks the secret door to the future
of humanity on this planet. It is what we can correct and build
on, glory in and mourn. It is the story of
the beast and angel that we, as a species, are. Without it, and
in forgetting it, we are no better than the tiny frightened mouse-like
critter that skittered between the feet of the dinosaurs, outlived
them
and became, in essence, if we remember our past, our mother...
THE mother to us all.
___
Steve's reply
Thank you for your comments. Our national
amnesia is a product of a political class, a mainstream media,
and an education system that are controlled by corporations, that
are in turn controlled by a ruling elite.
Those at the top know that the only thing
that allows them to get away with the theft of the American dream
and the pursuit of their international criminal policies, is a
public that is ignorant of history.
Historians and writers who seek to bring
the truth to an increasingly uninformed public are critically
important members of our society. Without them, Americans have
no chance of awakening from their deep sleep to understand the
real intentions of the people in power.
Salazar is just one of a multitude of
cretins who have been supported by American "statesmen"
in order to pursue their policies of greed. The Gilded Age has
returned to America because of the induced amnesia af the American
people, and the American empire is supported by these same people
who have been taught to believe that we only do good in the world.
***
From AD
My name is A_____ From Dublin, Ireland.
I'm in the Concern debating Quarter finals next week and the motion
is:" In the fight against third world poverty, the western
media is more of a hindrance than a help". My team and I
are proposing this motion and are finding it hard to get the right
information. If have any information that you could give me from
your site or even direct me to a part of your site that we could
go to it would bre greatly appreciated. My particular topic which
i must discuss is on compassion fatigue, and how the media desensitizes
us! Again any information would be greatly appreciated or if not
could you please guide me in the right direction as to where to
get information.
___
Steve's reply
I cannot think of any material on TWT
specific to the media's role in "First World compassion fatigue"
and Third World poverty. But, I believe, the problem is not so
much compassion fatigue, as it is a policy of the mainstream media
to keep people in West ignorant about the underdeveloped countries
and their people, except to present "human interest"
stories that tug at our hearts in order to keep our "eyeballs"
glued to the TV.
We in the West are ignorant of the third
world. We cannot relate to poor people in far-off lands except
as victims. The mainstream media in our countries do not tell
us that much third world poverty is the product of the concerted
policies of first world policymakers and their corporate patrons
to exploit the resources and cheap labor of the world's poor,
for profit.
That should be in the news. We should
be provided facts about the political causes of poverty, about
how our governments collude with ruling elites in Africa, Latin
America and elsewhere to keep the poor in poverty, and make them
poorer, so that we in the first world can maintain the lifestyles
we have come to enjoy.
If we can only relate to poor people throughout
the world as victims, we are likely to dismiss their plight as
just one more human tragedy, and go about our normal lives oblivious
to our role in their plight.
Instead of focusing on compassion fatigue
in your debate, focus on the failure of the mainstream media to
educate us, to offer us any explanations for the growth of poverty,
the repetition of famines, and the persistence of preventable
disease. We should not be fatigued, but angered, at being left
so ignorant by our mainstream media about the causes of third
world immiseration.
***
From SS
My son has been telling me about you.
So I have reading up about you and have decided you're an idiot,
a goof ball, and worst of all a dangerous man.
___
Steve's reply
I am neither an idiot nor a dangerous
man.
I present a view of the United States
that few Americans ever see or hear. I believe the material on
TWT offers a more accurate picture of this country and its role
in the world than that found in the US mainstream media. Rather
than calling me names, you should consider whether the information
presented on TWT may be the reason so much hate is now being directed
at America from many corners of the world.
You should be more tolerant of information
with which you do not agree. Do some research. Maybe you are wrong,
and I am right.
***
From RS
Do you have anything good to say about
the United States?
___
Steve's reply
I was raised to love America and respect
its leaders. I was taught that the US did only good in the world
- it was the knight that slayed evil global dragons; it was a
beacon for all who loved freedom; it championed democracy everywhere.
Then I grew up, lived through the Vietnam
War, and began my journey of uncovering the truth about US policies
in the world.
Do I have anything good to say about the
United States?
1 - The United States is the most militarily-powerful
and the richest country in the history of the world.
2 - America has been good to me - I was
educated, became a professional, lived well, and have enjoyed
the fruits of empire. I have no personal complaints. The problem
is the price my good life has cost the poorest people in the world.
3 - The US Constitution and Bill of Rights
have offered hope to the oppressed and unfree for generations
(although the Bill of Rights is in the process of being dismantled
as I write).
4 - The US defeated Nazi Germany, and
saved Europe from fascism, (but, some of the US's most powerful
industrialists supported Hitler and his war effort, and there
were many people in government and industry who hoped that Hitler
would subdue the communist USSR, and they were willing to let
Europeans pay the price - fascism.)
5 - The US-led Nuremberg Trials and the
US-supported UN Declaration of Human Rights set the standard for
international human rights law (although international law and
human rights are now being undermined by Bush and Company).
I'm sure, given time, I could think of
a few other good things the US has done.
But, the history of United States' actions
in the world is overwhelmingly negative - violence, injustice,
and the violation of human rights in the name of US corporate
profits.
Control of natural resources, strategic
military domination, access to cheap labor, access to markets
for US goods - these have in reality been the "ideals"
that young American men and women have fought, killed, and given
their lives for. Though politicians speak of democracy, freedom,
and justice, they spend the country's treasure and waste the lives
of its young invading poor countries and killing poor people of
color for the benefit a very few in America. Iraq is just one
aggressive blunder in a long series of aggressive acts that have
devastated the economies and cultures of poor countries and immiserated
and killed their people.
Follow the money. For the powerful, it's
not about democracy and freedom and liberty; it's about greed.
And it's a crying shame that most Americans
don't have a clue about what is going on.
***
From RK
My email should no more receive attention
than your Website should. You DID guess something correctly -
the citation from Ralph Waldo Emerson...the hardest thing is:
"to think!" Try it, you might like it.
___
Steve's reply
Don't be so critical of views with which
you do not agree. Be more tolerant of ideas and views against
which you clearly have a bias. You may be wrong.
***
From SM
You may be a traveler but your ignorant.
Your Bush accomplishment page is one of the biggest lists of lies
I've seen except for two. Rendering the U.N. irrelevant and withdrawing
from the world court were good things.
The last one in your list is especially
wrong. This economy was tanking before Bush took office. It started
tanking in 1998. Luckily I had a wise Canadian to listen to and
got out of the tech market in time right before clintons policies
destroyed the tech industry.
The good news though is that the American
public isn't listening to people like you anymore and we're better
off for it.
___
Steve's reply
You should be more tolerant of ideas with
which you do not agree. I believe you have been misinformed on
a number of issues, including George W. Bush.
From SM again
I'm afraid you don't know the difference
between information and propaganda. Being tolerant isn't always
a good thing either.
___
Steve's reply
You consider the books and articles on
TWT to be propaganda, but you ignore the propagandizing of the
NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and other establishment
media. Their biases are those of the media owners, CEOs, Boards
of Directors, and editors, whose allegiance is to the ruling class
and to the perpetuation of the structure of wealth and power in
this country.
Both the right and left have biases. The
difference is that the propaganda of the right reaches the American
people, while that of the left does not. TWT is a small attempt
to rectify that imbalance.
***
From SB
My question would be "Is it difficult
to believe the US is this bad"? Generally, I am very free
to do what I want when I want. How could the US could systemattically
screw everyone and there would be a little outcry? I think your
site is very informative and helpful.
How can you go from a conservative to
liberal thinking the country basically is an evil empire? What
is the most convincing story you have read?
___
Steve's reply
We are free, as long as we do not try
to change the structure of wealth and power in this country. The
major US corporations and a relatively small number of wealthy
individuals whose money is derived from corporate profits, manage
overall US policy. Their goal is to maximize corporate profits.
They live and die by the stock market - where they invest their
money and where their corporations' values rise or fall.
These corporations need global markets
to buy their products, they need raw materials. They need cheap
labor to grow their bananas (banana republic), make their toys,
and mine their aluminum. They need "stability" in the
poor third world countries where these resources are found and
where cheap manufacturing of their products occur.
And of course they need oil - we all need
oil. We're addicted to the stuff. Without it our economy would
tank and depression would follow.
So from the very beginning of this country,
the government has done what it needed to do to maintain stability
in countries on which it depended for markets, materials, and
labor. Our wealth came from exploiting other countries and peoples.
We took their labor and materials and we got rich in the process.
The Romans did it in 500BC, the Spanish did it in the 15th, 16th
and 17th centuries, the French in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries,
the British in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the US in the
19th, 20th and now 21st centuries. That's how empires are built.
Democracies are messy - people complain
and march and sometimes elect individuals who will not accept
low wages or sell their oil or natural gas or chromium or aluminum
to the US (or other first world countries) at bargain basement
prices. They want good wages for work and want to keep more of
the money from their national heritage - oil and gas - rather
than letting the transnational oil corporations reap windfall
profits from them. So, US leaders support dictatorships instead
of democracies, so they can control the price of labor and materials
in third world countries. They work out deals with tyrants and
military juntas to control their populations by whatever means.
In return these dictators get rich - really, really, rich.
So our government, since the Monroe Doctrine
in the 19th century, has invaded and occupied, spied on, propagandized,
and subverted, massacred and tortured poor people of color in
far-away or not-so-far-away lands who wanted democracy and independence
for their countries, and the freedoms that we enjoy.
Any leader or any people who has tried
to break away from the neoliberal economic policies of the US-led
globalization and use their country's wealth for his own people
has been severely punished - economically and militarily. The
"threat of a good example" is not tolerated. Examples
close to home include Haiti, Cuba, Guatemala, El Salvador, Brazil,
Venezuela, and on and on.
So, yes we are prosperous and free. We
are lucky to be living in a country whose origins were constitutional
and democratic. But, much of our wealth comes from the exploitation
of others and although we have democracy here, we have denied
democracy and freedom to millions throughout the world so we can
have a the lifestyles that we have. It is unfair and it is unethical.
And, if anyone tries to change this structure
of wealth of power, if we try to end a foreign policy of exploitation
and immiseration, we will find that our own freedom will be at
risk. For our ruling elite will not tolerate any of us threatening
this international system which has made them so wealthy and so
powerful.
TWT contains hundreds of articles and
book excerpts that explain at length what I have just written
in brief. Spend enough time at this website and you will begin
to understand how things really work.
***
From MB
I followed a link while reading Ingmar
Lee article : Beating Around the Bush By the Bourse and I discovered
your site ! I am still gasping for air after having seen so much
information. I've been a fan of alternative media for the past
2 years now and I always want to see and learn more . Well then,
today I am more then well served. Keep up the great work... Those
coming months and years ahead indicate to me that people will
need more and more ressources like the one you are offering !
____
Steve's reply
Thank you for your comments. There are
hundreds of authors and an enormous amount of material that contradict
the mainstream media view of the world, but few people know about
this wealth of information. TWT trys to put put as much of this
material as possible in one place for those who are tired of the
lies and disinformation and want to know the truth about American
democracy and the U.S.'s role in the world.
***
From AB
I do not understand your thought or ideology.
You claim not to be socialist or communist, yet you agree with
many of their quotes and beliefs. You seem to believe in a kind
of utopian society which is obvious will never exist. You claim
America...that some other places in the world are better...have
more freedoms...tell me where? I even read one quote that attempted
to compare the US to Nazi Germany...have you gone mad? America
is not perfect, however, I believe the Constitution does provide
for the freedoms of all. It has taken some time for these freedoms
to take hold...but this country has given these freedoms through
social reforms and change, not massacres, imprisonment, and executions.
I am sure you will have an argument to counter this, but the examples
you give are primarily isolated and do not represent the society
or Amercian government as a whole. Sure there are problems...things
will never be perfect. It is up to every individual to do what
is right and moral.
And as a side-note, I do believe war can
be justified under certain circumstances. Such as fighting for
freedom or the preservation of freedom; either for oneself or
a people. After all, if you don't stand for something, you'll
fall for anything!
___
Steve's reply
America was an "ideal" that
we were raised to believe in. At one time the world believed in
the American ideal as well. The universal belief in the greatness
of the US was based on our Bill of Rights, our role in WWII, and
on the vibrant democracy we had in comparison with other countries.
But the world has changed, and so has
the US. Now, there are countries that are more democratic and
that offer their people more decent lives. But, they are less
belligerent and violent than we are. They do not feel the need
to coerce weaker countries to follow a neoliberal corporate economic
model, do not feel the need to undermine elected democracies that
they do not agree with, do not feel the need to bully the world.
Successive US governments have carefully
chosen which democracies to support and which to get rid of. Successive
US governments have been very selective about which dictators
to prop up and which to remove. If a weak third world country
is democratic but wishes to use its wealth and resources for better
food, better health care, and better education for its people,
the US intervenes to ensure regime change. But, if a country is
ruled by a tyrant who oppresses and kills his own people, he is
supported by the US as long as he opens his country's labor and
resources to US corporate exploitation. When a tyrant steps out
of line (Noriega of Panama, and Saddam) we get rid of him
Our leaders are hypocrites who say they
are for freedom and democracy while undermining it everywhere.
And the American people, in their righteous ignorance, continue
to support these policies.
The people of the world have finally awoken
to the reality of the US, and they don't like what they see. Instead
of a steadfast champion of democracy and freedom, they see a selfish
and arrogant nation, run by thugs-in-suits, that wants the people
of the world to cower before its military strength, bow to its
economic power, and play by its rules.
The American ideal is dead. People who
know the truth must continue to criticize US policymakers and
their actions here and around the world. We must demand that this
country return to the ideals that made it great, ideals that at
one time engendered the love of the American people and the respect
of the world.
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