An Antidote to the Spin Doctors

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With humor, with skepticism, with outrage.

What about TV? 

Actually, if I'm around at 5:30, I'll tune in the network news, but people think that if they watch the evening news they're informed. They're more likely to be misinformed and confused and alienated and convinced there's nothing they can do. Where did the idea come from that you could tune in to some corporation whose job is to scare you to death into buying mouthwash and deodorant and get good information about what's important? The news is a massive myth.

Is there one book you like to recommend?

Jerry Mander's In the Absence of the Sacred. It synthesizes all the big issues: ecology, the environment, the quick fix, the high-tech sell job.

So, if you could make one law, what would it be? 

If I could wave my hand as the benevolent despot and make a sweeping change in the U.S. legal system, I would undo the hundred years of court decisions that have given corporations all the rights of citizens and relegated all the rest of us living, breathing human beings to second-class citizenship.

Another law that I'd like to see instituted is to require nonprofit tax-exempt organizations to reveal every labor union, corporation, trade association, foundation, and institutional funder that's given them more than a thousand dollars in a year. We assume that nonprofit organizations are going to behave in ways that benefit society, but the reality is that almost every nonprofit organization is willing to accept corporate money. Philip Morris is one of the biggest corporate philanthropists: They've learned how to co-opt nonprofit organizations very well.

So that's one part of the solution to corporate media manipulation. Any others?

Unfortunately, the solution always comes down to clichés and truisms: constant vigilance, developing critical thinking, and recognizing the difference between, as Caleb Carr says in his new book, Killing Time, information and knowledge. Ultimately, we all have to live our lives at both a personal and a societal level. So I advocate getting personally involved in issues you are most concerned about and hooking up with real organizations that encourage and promote grassroots activism on those issues. The real day-to-day grunt work of confronting polluters and figuring out solutions and figuring out how to live a healthy, activist life and make social change is conducted by citizens who realize that it does fall on their shoulders. They have to get out in their community and do it.

Discuss at the Culture conference in Cafe Utne: cafe.utne.com

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