> The tribe has been trying to stop NSP from storing more waste on
> Prairie Island, but they have been stalled at every turn. Even when
> they tried to run paid television advertising they were silenced. The
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> ad called attention to NSP's plans to build new nuclear waste storage
> at the site and asked the public to call the Public Utilities
> Commission and express their opinions; all the major television
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> stations in the Twin Cities refused to run the ad.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This reveals a little insight into one aspect of the tyranny that
can underlie a supposedly "free market". With the Media Monopoly
in this country (and around the world), one great basis of freedom
has been undermined. Or as someone else put it,
"Freedom of the press is limited to those who *own* the press!"
This has grave implications for FREE SPEECH -- because for dissenters,
freedom of speech is effectively limited to voices crying in the
wilderness. You are free to speak whatever you want, just so long
as millions of people are prevented from hearing your words.
I am involved with a group called the Media Foundation. They try to
counter the First World's consumption mentality, and they publish a
magazine called _Adbusters Quarterly_. They also try to air their
*paid* "UN-commercials" on TV. One of their spots shows a huge pig
occupying all of North America, noisily chewing and burping, while a
voiceover recites a few choice statistics about the First World's
voracious patterns of consumption and pollution. The slogan (with the
planet in the background) is, "American Excess --- Please leave Home
without it!"
Another uncommercial shows a father walking around with his head
literally stuck inside a TV. In the background a child's voice pleads,
"Dad, Dad! Talk to me, Dad!" The Canadian networks have refused to
accept many of these ads, and (so far) the Amerikan networks have
censored *all* their viewpoints.
Here are some comments to parts of the first reply by "goodwork":
> in the most immediate personal relationship to the furthest
> global reach of a multinational: to steal and consume the options
> of others, and then use the distorted power relations to make the
> others sell for nothing what little remains.
Yes, the crime of stealing and consuming others' options is something
that multinationals do to *everyone*, to some degree. The case of the
Mdewakanton Sioux is atypical in that such corporations (like Bush)
usually find it more cost effective to disguise their "naked aggression":
They brainwash and fool most of the people most of the time with
advertisements. They don't just sell products, they sell a way of
life that teaches how all problems can be solved by consumption.
You spoke of "distorted power relations", and those also apply to
the relation between the pushers and the addicts of consumption.
A case in point -- propaganda that made many Americans willing
to pay for their oil addiction with the blood of another people.
It should come as no surprise that they try to pay for their
nuclear addiction with the blood of Indian peoples.
> 2. This story is most likely the story of many other lands, so
> let's get systematic, share information and imagination,
Last spring, a group in Japan had to buy an ad in the New York Times
to protest the destruction of historic landmarks. The dominant
interests in Japan wanted to build a new hotel complex, and they
censored all attempts by the protestors to buy ads in Japanese
newspapers or TV. So yes, this story is undoubtedly repeated more
often in more places than we will ever be allowed to know.
> Can we create a model for use elsewhere? Could we create
> a wide network of "indigenous" and "environmentalists" to get
> accustomed to providing support for each other,
Lets hope so -- and this is a good place to start. These 2 groups
have much in common, but many "environmentalists" have not yet
realized the degradation of their own *cultural* environments.
> deliberate together issues of lifestyle change, boycott,
> world population growth and how they will deal with that,
Dialogue is important. First Worlders need to see themselves as
(some) others see them -- spiritually impoverished and emotionally
distorted by their bloated, materialistic lifestyles. Conversely,
many others in "developing" nations need to see that the lifestyles
of "Dallas" (as seen on TV!) are nothing to value or strive for.
> What else is there which might disrupt the imperial
> program, which at its base is a disease of relationship (among
> people and between people and the rest of the planet)
Adbusters? They have published several articles documentating the
destructive effects of First World "cultural pollution", including
some by Jerry Mander. The Cultural Environment Movement (CEM) is
another way. The first version of our "manifesto" was posted in
the media.issues conference on 5/21/91. I'll post an updated one
in a week or so, but here are some brief excerpts:
-------------------------------------------------
The cultural environment is the system of stories and images that
cultivates much of who we are, what we think, what we do, and how we
conduct our affairs. Until recently, it was primarily hand-crafted,
home-made, community-inspired.
Learning about the world is increasingly a byproduct of mass
marketing. Three out of four American kids grow up today in a home
without a full-time parent but with television an average of seven
hours a day. Most of the stories about life and values are told not by
parents, grandparents, teachers, clergy or others with their own stories
to tell, but by a handful of distant conglomerates with something to sell.
We pay for all that as consumers. We pay when we access every byte
of information. And we pay more for advertising-supported fare. The
price of a bar of soap includes money to pay for the "soap opera" that
tells about a brand of soap, and a style of life. We pay when we wash,
not when we watch, and we pay even if we never watch or do not like what
we watch.
Furthermore, the money added to the price of goods buys more than
ads and commercials. It buys culture-power. It buys the ability to
tell stories and sell values to hold in common. It buys the cultural
marketplace in which we are worth what we can spend. And it buys the
right to structure the public agenda.
For advertisers, this is "free speech" . . .
The Cultural Environment Movement is concerned with distortions
of the democratic process that marketing priorities cannot resolve and
often even exacerbate. These include the cultivation of mentalities
and behaviors that drug, hurt, poison, and kill thousands every day;
the portrayals that dehumanize and stigmatize; the cults of media violence
that desensitize, terrorize, and brutalize; the labeling of large groups
as "enemies" that makes it possible to incinerate a people or pulverize a
country; . . . the widening gaps in the richest country that already
has the most glaring inequalities in the industrial world;
We wage war on everything but injustice in our midst and unfolding
economic conditions that can only be described as the emergence of an
American Third World.