In the early 90s I wasn’t yet an Internet subscriber and obtained my news largely from magazines offering a broad spectrum of political opinion from conservative to liberal (NATIONAL REVIEW to THE NATION), social and religious issues (CHURCH AND STATE, TIKKUN and my own denomination’s UU WORLD), technology and science (SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN and BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY), classical music (BBC MUSIC), and current events (TIME, BUSINESS WEEK), and so forth, plus a couple of science fiction magazines. In 1996 I counted up the magazines that arrived in my mailbox and was astonished to realize that I got 27 a month–most of them monthly, a few that were weekly like THE NATION and NEWSWEEK. However, I rode an hour and a half on commuter train and bus to and from work, am a rapid reader, and managed to read nearly every article in each issue from cover to cover–plus books.

I more or less ignored TV. Then a friend recommended watching the current subtitled Korean historical series on our excellent independent channel here in Philadelphia, Channel 35, WYBE, now renamed MiND. I discovered that Channel 35 also carries BBC News, along with news from Italy, France, South Korea and elsewhere, and sometimes watched foreign news if I am home.

Unfortunately I don’t understand non-subtitled foreign news, even in French, which I read. The French newscast, LE JOURNAL, seemed more truthful than BBC, and when I first watched it was subtitled. Then it wasn’t! A French-American friend told me that on the demand of Washington, after the Iraq invasion the program could no longer add captions in English. This has been confirmed by Channel 35.

When I retired in 2003 I’d lost the evening news from France, my income had plummeted, and I had to give up all but 6 magazines–but by then I’d discovered the Internet. Even before the Iraq war began, my involvement in veterans’ antiwar actions (I’m a Navy vet) made many new friends who’ve recommended excellent news sites. The one I especially favor is TRUTHOUT, but there are several other good ones.

That is why we must ensure that the web remains free. If it does we’ll be able to obtain online investigative journalism, thought-provoking essays and analyses of events into the future. If the Internet falls to the privateers we’ll have lost the last bastion of mass communication.

Until the latest Korean historical drama began two weeks ago (on Channel 35, the only station I watch) I hadn’t even turned on a TV set for more than a year. As for radio, I tuned my car and living room radio exclusively to the local classical music and jazz station after the Bush-hype began in September, 2001, listening to CBS morning news only as a clock radio wake-up during the work-week. The blatant bias during the Clinton-Lewinsky mess convinced me that radio news was even more right-wing than TV news, and that some good 5:00 AM jazz made for a more worthwhile wake-up experience. Since then, unless a passenger in someone else’s car, I haven’t listened to a radio talk show of any kind, NPR included. When NPR news appears on the music radio station I turn down the sound till it’s over. Yes, I do feel that much disgust.

Kicking the radio-TV media habit and substituting reading material and the Internet, will make any of us better informed and more energized citizens.

However, on a similar note it seems that we in our “modern western countries” have a tendency to rush big decisions. The bigger the decision and the higher the impact it will have the quicker we should make up our minds about it - or at least that seems to be the political consensus in the European union these days.

As for Obama, if the world was to elect the next US president he would have a landslide victory. But then again, the world would never have elected W. Bush last time around either…

Certainly, our recent history has been something of a nightmare. Moreover, I personally believe that it is a nightmare consciously orchestrated by the powers that be. They’ve learned very well how to entrain our minds toward just the sorts of thoughts they wish us to have. They thereby create the world. It seems that we have little option other than to exist within that world. Weirdly enough, the most comfortable way to exist within it is to actually believe the madness that is spewed at us night and day, and taken into our minds in a largely unconscious way.

I choose, for the moment, not to assume that Obama is an answer to any of this. (My wife, ever more hopeful than I, disagrees). Certainly, however, he is a sign that we’re looking for something different…even, possibly, that we’re starting to tire of the dream and looking to awaken. We don’t have much sense of how to do that, though certainly removing the IV drip of the mainstream media from our veins seems like a good place to start. And yes, your blog proves by its very existence that there are alternatives out there. Real thoughts by real people. Huh!

We might note that the voices in the media are becoming ever more shrill…I think it’s finally becoming obvious to them that not everyone is listening. Fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me…you can’t get fooled again.

Thanks, Arlene, for being an antidote to the stupidity of recieved opinion. They’ll continue to tell us what to think, no doubt, but keep nudging us from our slumber.