Why does the US media lie so much?

A good opinion piece on how American media blatantly lies to its own people, & the world. However, they always thought, & still think, that there would be no adverse consequences from this lying. Well, there are consequences for every action.

The lying & false statements about Afghanistan war, Iraq war, & in general, war on terror, for instance, have made our world a lot less safe. Those wars brought hell to innocent people in those regions where those wars are taking place, & at the same time, American soldiers, their families, & the whole American economy, also suffered, & in fact, is still suffering. Imagine the world now, if that same American media would have reported the news as it should have been reported in the first place, instead of saying, “the news is what we say it is.”

War on terror is just one example out of many. The opinion piece gives an example of how chemicals injected into cows to force them to give more milk harms the Americans, themselves, who drink that milk. We can easily extend that example to meat, fruits & vegetables, & many other kinds of foods American public is eating & suffering from multiple health problems.

Media, & by extension, journalism, are supposed to be vanguard of the public, against the wrongdoers; be that wrongdoers be the governments or anyone else. But when the media falsifies & lies about what is going on in the country, then the consequences are horrifying. Now, that lying of media has brought on Trump & its supporters labelling each & everything coming out of MSM (mainstream media) as false, lies, & "fake news." It's not that Trump is not lying, either, but the public becomes completely confused as to who to believe, when both parties are saying that what they are reporting or saying is true & the other is lying.

On top of that, this opinion piece also shows the hypocrisy of Americans. We in the developing world think that the developed world got to where it is by being honest, truthful, & transparent. No. Their development has got nothing to do with these noble traits of a society & people. The developed world got to where it is now by lying, cheating, & defrauding the other party.

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https://www.rt.com/op-ed/337424-us-media-lie-mckinney/

Either by omission or by commission, the US media actively misinforms the public on crucial issues that matter. The reason they do this is because they legally can.

My mentor and dissertation committee member, Dr. Peter Dale Scott, recently wrote on his Facebook page: “Inadequate decently priced housing is one of America's most urgent domestic problems, with developers vacating neighborhoods to build third and fourth homes for the one percent. It is a symptom of what's wrong that Cynthia McKinney, one of the relatively few former members of Congress with a Ph.D., has to go to RT to discuss a crisis that is so under-reported in the US media.”

And therein lies the problem with US media: The news is so filtered and in some cases propagandized that it bears little resemblance to the day-to-day intellectual needs of the average US citizen. It fails to provide solutions, let alone information that allows US citizens to cast informed votes. Either by omission or by commission, the US media actively under-, ill-, or misinforms the public on crucial issues that matter! The reason they do this is because they legally can. Media in the US has at least one court ruling that allows them to knowingly lie to the public.

Let’s start with the First Amendment to the US Constitution that protects freedom of speech. Courts in the US have ruled on many occasions that freedom of speech also includes the freedom to lie. The rationale is that such rulings give space for unpopular statements of fact. For example, in 2012, the US Supreme Court voted 6-3 to affirm a lower court decision to overturn a conviction for lying about one’s credentials.

The lower court judge in that case wrote, “How can you develop a reputation as a straight shooter if lying is not an option?”

Washington State Supreme Court even ruled that lying to get votes, distinguishing between fact and opinion, was not something that the state should negotiate. It wrote that people and not the government should be the final arbiter of truth in a political debate.

Now, the First Amendment does not protect some types of lying: like, for instance, lying while under oath, lying to a government official, lying to sell a product. Even in defamation cases, the plaintiff has a firm threshold to overcome, especially if the person targeted is a “public person.” However, the Supreme Court has emphatically ruled that individuals have a right to lie: what about corporations and media outlets? In 2012, the Supreme Court extended First Amendment rights to organizations and corporations in its Citizens United decision.

My local newspaper, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution (AJC), ran a headline against me just days before my election that read: “McKinney Indicted.” One had to pore over the article to learn that the McKinney referred to was neither me nor my father, nor anyone related to me. But the AJC never stated that fact. It was a dirty trick carried out by the US press. And sadly, it happens all the time. I filed a lawsuit against the AJC, but had to withdraw it because of a lack of money to finance the lawsuit and, worse, the hostile environment regarding the media and anybody's efforts to make them tell the truth. I remained powerless before the media monolith and wondered why and how they could get away with such blatant and outright lies.

Then, in 2010, 'Project Censored' ran a story that caught my eye: “The Media Can Legally Lie.” After having had my series of run-ins with my local media as they always failed to report the truth about me, I was drawn to this story. Project Censored is a media watchdog based at Sonoma State University in California. Its goal is to end the junk food news diet of misinformation and disinformation fed to the US public by the corporate media. It is a project of students and faculty to shine a light on underreported or unreported stories that should be of great interest to the public. The Project Censored movie tells a part of its important story.

The 2010 story centers on two journalists, hired by FOX News as investigative journalists, who became whistleblowers when they were instructed to report “news” that they knew was not true.

According to Project Censored, in February 2003, FOX News argued that there was no prohibition on media outlets distorting or falsifying the news in the United States. And skipping ahead, FOX News won on that claim! But to backtrack to provide some context, the issue was the placement of Bovine Growth Hormone, BGH, manufactured by Monsanto, into the milk stream without labeling it.

A husband and wife reporting team produced a four-part series revealing the health risks for humans in drinking milk from cows treated with BGH to boost milk production. FOX News wanted the reporters to add statements from Monsanto that the couple knew were not factual. When they refused to make the suggested edits, the couple was fired. They sued and a Florida jury decided the couple was wrongfully fired. FOX News appealed the case. Basically, the Florida Appeals Court ruled that there is no law, rule, or even regulation against distorting the news and that the decision to report honestly resides with the news outlet.

FOX News was joined in its court action by other news outlets, notably Cox Television, Inc., a sister organization to the Cox-owned Atlanta Journal and Constitution. In an incredible and chilling turnabout, the two truth-telling journalists were ordered to pay FOX News millions of dollars to cover the company’s attorney fees. The reporters were told by FOX News executives, “The news is what we say it is.”

And there we have it. Now, this Court action immediately affected the right of people in the US to know what is in the food they buy. Media consolidation in the US is such that six corporations control 90% of the junk food news and entertainment fed to the people of the US and around the world. And US Courts not only say that this is OK, but also decided that it’s OK for them to knowingly lie to the public. That, in a nutshell, is why the US media lie: Because they can. And that, in a nutshell, is why the people of the US are increasingly turning to RT and alternative news outlets for information: Because they must.

Criminal Minds S1E21 Quote 2

Holding a mirror to the US - on exceptionalism, double standards & global police supra-state

A great opinion piece on American actions all around the world, all the while, boasting of its moral superiority over others. That moral superiority, which US achieves through its military might & forcing others (notably Europe) to follow, has gained US & its citizens more of hateful scorns from around the world than grateful praises.

The so-called "independent" media & journalism all over the world follows the US command of showing the Western Europe, Australia, & North America (US & Canada only) as the beacon of hope, honesty, fairness, law & order, & freedom & independence. That same "independent" media also shows how their own countries are worthless pieces of lands where anarchy & chaos apparently rules & people have nothing else to do but fight each other. As I have said multiple times before in my blog posts that Global North's polished image is like the Snow White's poisoned polished apple.

As the Chancellor correctly points out in movie, "V for Vendetta," that fear is the best way to control populations, American politicians have resorted to the same tactic. Donald Trump isn't the first one resorting to lies & false news stories to increase divisiveness & fear, & rile up its followers. Every American President from Second World War onwards has done the exact same thing; Germans, Japanese, Vietnamese, Cubans, Russians, Muslims have already been targeted, or are being targeted, & the Chinese are the next in the American & its European crosshairs.

As an aside, I love the Star Trek series; "Star Trek: The Next Generation". I always wonder while watching this TV series that if American & European politicians learn how to lead & govern from this TV series, the world would become a far better place by itself.

The right to lead can never be earned through military might & covert backroom agendas but by leading by example. America wants to be considered exceptional because it thinks it has those noble qualities of honesty, fairness, hope, justice etc., & hence, it thinks it has the right to lead the world towards a better place, but then it institutes double standards & injustices to put in place policies (sanctions, wars etc.) to control people & information, even at the expense of innocent lives. In some respect, what is going on in US right now; the violence being borne out of racial fears among its own American citizens, is a direct result of its actions on other nations, countries, & people around the world.
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https://www.rt.com/op-edge/315076-us-democracy-syria-war/

As the Middle East continues to descend into madness, wrecked by wars & convulsed by human tragedies, America stands at the center of it all - the grand engineer of instability, the architect of a world system which cornerstone is profoundly ademocratic.

For well over a decade now the world has been force-fed American exceptionalism; taught to believe that America knows best what the world needs, how it needs to be organized & more importantly under whose leadership countries should be allowed to function.

Any challenge to Washington's authority & its supra-national moral legitimacy have systematically been met by furious media slander & threats of sanctions - Russia, more than any other country knows what it cost to stand up to this new American political deity.

The self-appointed political world police, the US has run, dominated & of course dictated the world's media narrative, playing democratic mind games with a gullible public while pursuing violent covert agendas. The Middle East of course has stood at the epicenter of this grand play for regime change & race for control.

If you thought America' s military interventions in Afghanistan & Iraq in the wake of 9/11 only exacerbated tensions, adding more fire to the predetermined narrative of perpetual war, then what of the destruction which has rained on Libya, Syria & now Yemen? Where exactly will the drones & tanks stop? How many communities will have to be laid waste before this prodigal democratic era US politicians have so fervently talked about actually manifests itself?

We have gone so far down the rabbit hole that people have become desensitized to human rights violations, breaches in privacy laws & blatant disregard for international law, all in the name of evasive national security.

With US politicians running the rationale of fear on all platforms available, reason & logic have been labeled under temporary insanity & conspiracy. According to Washington, the world needs direction - the type of righteous direction only America can give since its very constitution stands the perfect expression of all things fiercely democratic & freedom perfect. In this Orwellian play we find ourselves stuck in, all countries have been made-to-measure to Washington's political standards & expectations. Democratic devolution you say?

I would argue this train has already left the station. We have now entered the uncharted territories of a US-run supra-national police state system, where globalism rhymes with authoritarianism. A brave new world indeed.

So Arab leaders are dictatorial & despicably abusive toward their own people, or so the US says. Well in most cases that's true enough, but that never stopped the US or other Western capitals for that matter to develop close economic & political ties with them. Funny how dutiful America only woke up to the horrors of Arab fascism when nations began clamoring for independence.

From Muammar Gaddafi to Saddam Hussein & the Shah of Iran, Washington's friends & allies have not exactly been choir boys - more the who's who of the world most violent tyrants.

But that's not even the point. The point is, when a country decides to drop names & list offenses it better make sure that its own government is not committing the very crimes it finds so revolting in others.

US officials today have justified their intervention in Syria by arguing terror militants need to be dealt with as a matter of urgency to protect Western democracies. Those same officials have, in the same breath, argued that "moderate" radicals should be used to depose Syrian President Bashar Al Assad as the latter no longer holds popular legitimacy. The rationale here is that a democratically elected head of state should be actively brought down by way of terrorism to help promote stability. I have to say, I'm confused here.

More confusing still, in recent weeks Russia was slammed for allegedly planning to actively oppose ISIS militants in Syria. You would think that Western powers would actually hail counter-terrorism efforts. Wrong! As far as Washington is concerned only it can wield military force to oppose terror - anyone else's efforts are illegal.

Commenting on the matter on September 10, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed, “As we are facing unfounded accusations that we are doing something illegal and reinforcing the ISIL, I'd recommend watching the coalition's actions.” He added, "I am convinced that coordinated efforts are quite possible if double standards are rejected."

And indeed, double standards stand at the core of all the world's problems.

For example, when asked why President Assad lost all legitimacy officials & analysts have intermittently advanced that his rule was forfeited the second he began targeting his own people for political advancement. The same rhetoric has held for Libya, Yemen, Iraq & everything in between.

Since 9/11 America has moved in a higher plane of morality, on account of its political, economic & military might.

But let's turn the mirror around for a second & see what reflects back.

Wasn't it America which gifted the world with such things as renditions, institutionalized surveillance, black sites, systematic tortures, ethno-religious profiling & other niceties?

Wasn't it America again which opened an illegal black hole when its leaders decided that unmanned drones should enter the military fray as murdering weapons of choice?

America has no lesson to give when it comes to democracy building & legitimacy … & it certainly cannot claim to any form of exceptionalism; not when it has so much blood on its hands & not when it has committed so very few funds to humanitarian aid.

If anything Washington officials have mastered the art of terror-propping & radical-funding - from Ukraine to Syria, America has some of the world most despicable characters on its payroll … All for the greater good of course.

 Catherine Shakdam is a political analyst, writer and commentator for the Middle East with a special focus on radical movements and Yemen. A regular pundit on RT and other networks her work has appeared in major publications: MintPress, the Foreign Policy Journal, Mehr News and many others. Director of Programs at the Shafaqna Institute for Middle Eastern Studies, Catherine is also the co-founder of Veritas Consulting. She is the author of Arabia’s Rising - Under The Banner Of The First Imam

"The Fifth Estate" movie quote

Baltimore & the media tyranny of non-violence

Although, the protests in Baltimore & Ferguson are long gone, & hopefully, not forgotten, the tyranny of modern media continues unabated & unabashedly.

Journalism used to be, & still is, a very respected profession, but just like several other professions (lawyer, politician, & even religious clergy) is now corrupted & a hollow of its former glory & respect.

Now, the modern media is all about ratings, sales, & marketing. It is only there to spread more chaos & hatred through sensational stories, & going as far as, fabricating stories (like it happened in the run-up to the 1991 Gulf War & once again, before the Iraq war in 2003).

But, then can we really blame the media for further inciting violence & hatred, & stoking the public's anger? Can we really blame the media for not even reporting on those stories, which don't have some kind of "juice" & "drama" in them? As this opinion piece & several other articles said that cameras in Baltimore weren't even rolling until protestors became violent. Peaceful protests weren't even covered & then so-called journalists, news anchors, & media personalities openly questioned why these protestors are so violent, even though, they never saw peaceful protests, which happened for days on end.

Anyway, I'd say that the modern media & the general public are both equally to blame. Why? Because, the media is all about marketing its services to the public. They are a business, after all. So, you need to ask yourself that why do the viewer ratings only go up when media is showing violence & sensational news stories. Because, it's what the general public craves. A TV news story is boring if no drama is happening in it.

Media is a very powerful way to help resolve such heavy issues as justice, peace, equality etc. TV news can very easily either inflame the society & turn people against each other, & hence, stalling any improvement, whatsoever, taking place in terms of justice & equality among the general public, OR, it can solve those same problems the society is suffering from, by starting a deep dialogue & showing how & what people are doing to improve relations & mending differences; be it ethnic, racial, cultural, or regional.

After all, we, humans are not so different from each other. Tyranny of the popular media seems to be creating more rifts in our society for its own profitability at the expense of social harmony.
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http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/04/baltimore-media-tyranny-violence-150430070102282.html

If it were ever in doubt, the protests in Baltimore have shown us once again that only some types of violence are visible, or really matter. As demonstrations in this US city surged following the death in police custody of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, the terrible violence of that death - on top of so many more, at the hands of US police - was sidelined out of the story.
 
Gray was arrested when he fled after "catching the eye" of a police officer & his neck was broken while in police custody, but it was the smashed glass storefronts on Baltimore's streets that became the focus of concern.
 
The US media went into overdrive with its depiction of "chaos, violence & lawlessness" as MSNBC put it. Collective establishment heads were shaken at the looting.
 
The clear racist overtones in the coverage of "black rioters", as news website Breitbart.com headlined it or of "thugs" on a rampage, as so many more news organisations depicted it, was routinely denied, while widespread haranguing using the trump card of "protest violence" took hold.
 
Peaceful protests
 
CNN host Wolf Blitzer demanded that Baltimore community organiser Deray McKesson denounce violence and support only peaceful protests.
 
"You are suggesting broken windows are worse than broken spines," came the response to this attempt to redefine the significant details of the story, in a city that has already paid out nearly $6m to alleged victims of police brutality, including a grandmother and a pregnant woman.
 
And so here it is again: The stealthy tyranny of the "non-violent" proviso demanded of popular protests. Events in Baltimore are symptomatic of & particular to the US & its bloody history of state & social violence, in all its forms, against black Americans from slavery to the streets today. But the unrepresentative & wholly marginal violence of broken windows is invariably invoked against all protests that are struggles against power & its abuses.
 
From the streets of England during its riots of 2011, or back to the anti-capitalists protests against the WTO in Seattle in 1999; the IMF in Prague & the G8 summit in Genoa; from the protests engulfing marginalised French suburbs, to Ferguson in the US, right across to the Palestinian struggle to be free from occupation - all these movements against inequality & injustice are bound by the media depiction of protest as suddenly, senselessly "violent".
 
Such loaded appraisals are wilfully blind to the fact that situations never go from total calm to sudden violence. There is a daily, pervasive state violence that is never spoken of, much less acknowledged: for Palestinians living under a brutal military occupation; for marginalised, disenfranchised young people in British cities or French suburbs; for African Americans disproportionately impoverished, disadvantaged & preyed upon by US police, surviving generation upon generation of institutionalised & violent racism; for the global South diminished & drained by neo-liberal policies imposed upon it by the IMF & the WTO.
 
The violence never starts with protesters on the streets - it's just that this is the moment the cameras decide to start filming. In this context, it takes a special kind of struggle-free, reality-blind sanctimony for media commentators to start preaching about the need for non-violence.
 
Moreover, the disproportionate focus on the violence of broken windows & looted shops ignores the full panorama of these issues: the lengthy, ongoing debates within protest movements over the merits & drawbacks of violence (against property, not people) as a tactic; the attempts within communities to prevent & guard against violence, or dissipate tensions, or take action to clear up in the aftermath; the pressure-cooker conditions created by ramped up, over-militarised, heavy-handed & often provocative policing; the simple fact that movements unite over causes if not always tactics; or just that understanding why a few people might steal trainers during protests is not at all the same as justifying such behaviour.
 
Instead, the "non-violence" theme is rolled out precisely to prevent any such debate over causes, context or history. This media preoccupation is in place to ensure that we stop talk about anything else.
 
We know the Martin Luther King quote: "A riot is the language of the unheard." The question is why, after so long, are these voices still not listened to? And who is it that doesn't want us to hear them?
 

Rachel Shabi is a journalist & author of Not the Enemy: Israel's Jews from Arab Lands.

"Civic Duty Slipping" by Steve Kelley

"Civic Duty Slipping" - Steve Kelley, Times-Picayune, New Orleans, LA, US

"Incitement to Violence" by Pat Bagley

"Incitement to Violence" - Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City, UT, US

"Reporters without Borders" by Stavro Jabra

"Reporters without Borders" - Stavro Jabra, Lebanon

US media criticized for Baltimore coverage

A great small article highlighting the fact that how mainstream news media selects what to show on their channels, & how their anchors choose words to frame a certain section of population & their activities as illegal or dangerous. But when that same section of population tries to achieve their goals through peaceful & non-violent means, those news media are nowhere to be found.

Everyone is ready to quote Gandhi & gave examples of his non-violent struggles (if you read the uncensored history of freedom of Indian subcontinent from Britain, you'd realize that it was not non-violent & it involved a lot more people than just Gandhi) but forget that non-violence achieved nothing & won't achieve anything even more now, since the corporate news media is all about ratings & the general populace has been desensitized to the point that they won't focus on a news until chaos & anarchy is being televised.

Did the non-violent struggles of Dr. Martin Luther King achieved his dream of equality & justice for all, regardless of their skin colour? Did Nelson Mandela's non-violent struggles of freeing South Africa & building an equal & just society in South Africa has come to fruition? What about Dalai Lama's non-violent struggles or Aung San Suu-Kyi's for Myanmar? None of them achieved their dream to the full extent.

They / their population were / are still struggling for those rights; be it African-Americans, or Black South Africans, or Buddhists of Tibet, or full & transparent democracy in Myanmar (that military junta only opened the country & accepted a semblance of democracy so foreign investors pour money in the country & the military elite further increase their wealth).

Problem is that the root problems of all these struggles are not hard to find & they are pretty openly laid out by campaigners, activists, & community & political organizations, but the political & corporate elites don't want to resolve those issues. Unlike other minorities in US, African-Americans have been living in US for more than a couple centuries, but they are still considered second-class citizens & they are discriminated against, heavily. Sometimes, it feels like that my ethnic minority, South Asian, are relatively treated better than African-Americans.

These protests all over US are not the result of one person's death. These protests are the result of decades of frustration & anger towards the discrimination African-Americans face on a daily basis.

P.S., a great documentary to see how corporate world controls the American media is, "Shadows of Liberty."

Disclaimer: Of course, I am not condoning such acts of destruction or violence for someone to get their point across, but it is completely understandable why it is happening, & until & unless, the governments, at all levels, engage with the population, instead of merely deploying the police force, & work with the communities to eradicate injustice & inequality, these acts of destruction & violent protests will become more prevalent in the American society.
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http://rt.com/usa/254349-media-coverage-baltimore-questions/

The mainstream US media are facing criticism over their coverage of unrest in Baltimore. Activists & residents claim the media ignored peaceful marches, focused on labels & violence, & ignored the chronic issues of poverty & police misconduct.
 
Protesters shouted down Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera, who arrived in Baltimore shortly before the curfew on Tuesday. They blocked his camera and accused Fox News of lying & “false coverage.”

Fox & other networks were accused of ignoring the peaceful marches & gatherings that were previously protesting the death of Baltimore resident Freddie Gray in police custody.

“When we were out here protesting all last week for 6 days straight peacefully, there were no news cameras, there were no helicopters, there was no riot gear, & nobody heard us,” protester Danielle Williams told MSNBC's Thomas Roberts on Tuesday. “So now that we've burned down buildings & set businesses on fire & looted buildings, now all of the sudden everybody wants to hear us.”

Fox News host Shepard Smith, speaking on “The Five,” also pointed out that the media has ignored Baltimore’s chronic issues, including the Gray affair.

“We’ve got a major American city that has decades – decades – of turmoil within this neighborhood,” Smith said. “One quarter of the youth locked up. Clearly there is a big problem. Then all of a sudden, an African-American man is taken into a vehicle, & he comes out of it and dies – & you get nothing from authorities except a suspension. And those who would do harm take an opportunity to do harm. And here we are.”

City Councilman Carl Stokes was exasperated by CNN host Erin Burnett’s use of the word.

“No, it’s not the right word to call our children ‘thugs,’” Stokes said. “These are children who have been set aside, marginalized, who have not been engaged by us.”

Comedy host Jon Stewart also took issue with the media coverage of Baltimore unrest, singling out CNN’s Wolf Blitzer’s statement that Monday’s imagery was “hard to believe.”
 
“Elvis leading a herd of orthodox Jewish unicorns through a city street – that would be hard to believe,” Stewart chided Blitzer in Tuesday’s edition of The Daily Show. “Ferguson was just a few months ago, & you were talking about it.”
 
“Maybe a more nuanced alert system could allow for more productive intervention beyond, ‘You have 10 seconds to disperse,’” Stewart argued. “Or we could agree to keep ignoring the roots of how systemically, historically disenfranchised many African-American communities still are, only paying attention to them when their periodic fiery ball of anger threatens to enter our airspace like some kind of Alex Haley’s comet. And once again breathing a blissful sigh of forgetful relief when it’s another near-miss.”

A Dark Truth, (Quote 6)

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A Dark Truth, Quote 1

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Lee Kuan Yew gave Singapore independence, & world a bad idea

For about 6 months in 2014, Pakistanis kept themselves on the road, in the hopes of a democratic government. And Singaporeans, on the other hand, are crying at the loss of their dictator. Perhaps, a benevolent dictator is what we all need.
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His [Lee Kuan Yew] main contribution was to legitimize the idea that you can have progress without democracy, at least the kind with a robust opposition, critical press & changes of government. Mr. Lee was prime minister of his city-state for 31 straight years, brooking little dissent. Their People’s Action Party has held power since 1959.

“The exuberance of democracy leads to undisciplined & disorderly conditions which are inimical to development,” the senior Lee once said.
 
Strongmen around the world applauded. Gulf State sheiks celebrated him. Russia’s Vladimir Putin was a fan. A succession of Chinese leaders sought his advice. If he could raise his country to riches without all the fuss & bother of democratic politics, why couldn’t they?
 
Even Western democracies sometimes wondered if he might have a point when he said that rampant individualism & cranky special-interest politics were holding them back.
 
The kind of leader that Mr. Lee personified – stern, fatherly, morally upright, far-seeing, a good shepherd to his flock – has enormous appeal even in a democratic age. If such a leader can deliver the goods, many would say, well, then, who cares about a free press or a critical opposition?
 
The trouble is that the world produces very few such leaders. Mr. Lee was all but unique, an incorruptible strongman who really did put country above personal gain. The “Singapore model” is a direct product of his personality. It is hard to think of a place that bears its leader’s imprint so clearly.
 
A brilliant, London-educated lawyer, Mr. Lee led Singapore to independence & immediately set about remaking it in his own image: tough, disciplined, pragmatic, self-reliant.
 
Mr. Lee opened the country to foreign trade & investment but held a choke hold on politics, keeping the media tamed & the tiny opposition cowed. There is no denying it: the formula worked. Singapore averaged 7% annual growth for decades, eventually surpassing its old overlord, Britain, in per capita income.
 
Singapore is hardly a totalitarian state ... Singapore is a billboard for what is often called soft authoritarianism.
 
Without the check of opposition, the scrutiny of a free media & the threat of being tossed out by the voters, most leaders descend along the familiar path to corruption & brutality. That Mr. Lee did not was a function of his character, not of the virtues of the Singapore model.
 
What calls itself benevolent dictatorship is usually a bust. China’s collective leadership has raised living standards, but at the price of enormous corruption & environmental destruction. Mr. Putin’s bare-chested rule is curdling into aggressive nationalism.
 
Mr. Lee’s government was the exception to the rule. His success, sad to say, is probably not transferable. He worked on a small canvas: an island nation of 5.5 million about the size of Toronto.
 
For better models of development, look to other Asian success stories. Taiwan & South Korea have graduated from authoritarianism to full-throated democracy without sacrificing any of their economic dynamism.
 
So praise Lee Kuan Yew, by all means. ... But don’t pretend he is a model. Strongman government without true democratic accountability usually ends in failure.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/lee-kuan-yew-gave-singapore-independence-and-the-world-a-bad-idea/article23610260/

Cloud Atlas (Quote # 8)

This mentality is required for our world at this very moment. We all are supposed to be actively working, in whatever capacity we can, towards ending injustice & inequality, which in turn, will help bring peace.
 
Inequality & injustice breed in a society where people prefer to shut their eyes (or cover their ears or shut their mouths) over speaking out against the lies being spread by our globalized corporate media against any entity or activity taking place in the world. People now have become indifferent & chalk everything up to "who am I to intervene in that person's life". But a society is made up of people, & if good people don't intervene in the beginning, then that little budding evil becomes a whole tree of evil in time, which then becomes very hard to cut down.

 
Just wishing for peace, like those Miss World & Miss America pageants won't bring peace or any positive, meaningful change in this world.

 

Aldous Huxley on Modern Government

Newspapers - Malcolm X Quote

Cloud Atlas (Quote # 1)

Don't act on emotions