The Social Cost of Capitalism

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

These outrages keep occurring on top of other ecocides caused by the oil industry, ranging in enormity from Valdez to BP’s murder of the Gulf of Mexico———all with no real condemnation or punishment of the capitalists and executives involved.

 

The Animas River: one of the countless victims of capitalism—the system that keeps on killing.

The Animas River: one of the countless victims of capitalism—the system that keeps on killing.

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]ew, if any, corporations absorb the full cost of their operations.  Corporations shove many of their costs onto the environment, the public sector, and distant third parties.  For example, currently 3 million gallons of toxic waste water from a Colorado mine has escaped and is working its way down two rivers into Utah and Lake Powell.  At least seven city water systems dependent on the rivers have been shut down. The waste was left by private enterprise, and the waste was accidentally released by the Environmental Protection Agency, which might be true or might be a coverup for the mine.  If the Lake Powell reservoir ends up polluted, it is likely that the cost of the mine imposed on third parties exceeds the total value of the mine’s output over its entire life.

Economists call these costs “external costs” or “social costs.” The mine made its profits by creating pollutants, the cost of which is born by those who had no share in the profits.

As this is the way regulated capitalism works, you can imagine how bad unregulated capitalism would be.  Just think about the unregulated financial system, the consequences we are still suffering with more to come.

Despite massive evidence to the contrary, libertarians hold tight to their romantic concept of capitalism, which, freed from government interference, serves the consumer with the best products at the lowest prices.

If only.

Progressives have their own counterpart to the libertarians’ romanticism.  Progressives regard government as the white knight that protects the public from the greed of capitalists.

If only.

Everyone, and most certainly libertarians and progressives, should read Jeffrey St. Clair’s bubsbook, Born Under A Bad Sky (2008).  St. Clair is an engaging writer, and his book is rewarding on many levels.  If you have never floated the Western rivers or met the challenge of treacherous rapids or camped among mosquitoes and rattlesnakes, you can experience these facets of life vicariously with St. Clair, while simultaneously learning how corruption in the Park Service, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management results in timber companies, mining companies, and cattle ranchers making money by plundering national forests and public lands.

The public subsidies provided to miners, loggers, and ranchers are as extravagant and as harmful to the public interest as the subsidies that the Federal Reserve and Treasury provide to the “banks too big to fail.”

Progressives and libertarians need to read St. Clair’s accounts of how the Forest Service creates roads into trackless forests in order to subsidize timber companies’ felling of old growth forest and habitat destruction for endangered and rare species.  Our romanticists need to learn how less valuable lands are traded for more valuable public lands in order to transfer wealth from the public to private hands.  They need to learn that allowing ranchers to utilize public lands results in habitat destruction and the destruction of stream banks and aquatic life.  They need to understand that the heads of the federal protective agencies themselves are timber, mining, and ranching operatives who work for private companies and not for the public.  Americans of all persuasions need to understand that just as senators and representatives are bought and paid for by the military/security complex, Wall Street, and the Israel Lobby,  they are owned also by mining, timber and ranching interests.

The public interest is nowhere in the picture.

The two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are at 39% and 52% of capacity.  The massive lakes on which the Western United States is dependent are drying up. And now Lake Powell is faced with receiving 3 million gallons of waste water containing arsenic, lead, copper, aluminum and cadmium.  Wells in the flood plains of the polluted rivers are also endangered.

The pollutants, which turned the rivers orange, flowed down the Animas River from Silverton, Colorado through Durango into the San Juan River in Farmington, New Mexico, a river that flows into the Colorado River that feeds Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

All of this damage from one capitalist mine.

In November of last year, US Rep. Chris Stewart (R.Utah) got his billpassed by the House.

Stewart is a hit man for capitalism.  His bill “is designed to prevent qualified, independent scientists from advising the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They will be replaced with industry affiliated choices, who may or may not have relevant scientific expertise, but whose paychecks benefit from telling the EPA what their employers want to hear.”

Rep. Stewart says it is a matter of balancing scientific facts with industry interests.

And there you have it.

 

Quite surprisingly, Paul Craig Roberts is a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury (under Reagan) and Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. Roberts’ How the Economy Was Lost is now available from CounterPunch in electronic format. His latest book is How America Was Lost.

ADDENDUM
Screen Shot 2015-08-05 at 6.19.17 PM
The report below shows the degree of pathological anthropocentrism and capitalist insouciance raging in the deepest bowels of government, where usually the worst human elements climb to the top.  Everyone kees talking about how little harm the spill has caused humans (probably a lie, in itself), while no one laments the fate of this river system or the animals who also depend on the waterways that they share with Americans. This report, for what it says to us about the state of this country, is simply disgusting. —PG

 

Colorado river’s pollution levels fall after spill (it is claimed)

Getty Images

By Timothy Cama – 08/12/15 09:45 AM EDT
THE HILL.com

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]olorado state officials said pollution appears to have cleared from the Animas River after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) caused a massive mine waste spill.

Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) and Larry Wolk, executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said Tuesday that their latest sampling show that the river is back to the pollution levels it had before the spill of 3 million gallons of heavy metals last week, The Durango Herald reported.

“Isn’t that amazing? That’s much better than what I would have hoped for,” Hickenlooper said in Durango, according to the Herald.

“The indications are that the threat to the human health is returning back to pre-event levels, if not already there now,” he continued.

Wolk said his agency does not believe there is any risk to human health.

The test results mean that officials could potentially reopen the river to recreation, fishing and drinking water intakes before the Aug. 17 target that was initially planned.

The EPA, meanwhile, said it was encouraged by the new findings but wanted to verify the results itself before giving its blessing.

The spill caused the river to turn bright orange and shined a spotlight of attention and embarrassment on the EPA.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy was due Wednesday to visit Durango and Farmington, N.M., which is downstream.

She and other officials have repeatedly apologized for the spill, which was caused accidentally when EPA contractors moved soil that was holding back a tailings pond from the gold mine that was abandoned decades ago.

 

pale blue horiz

FACT TO REMEMBER:
IF THE WESTERN MEDIA HAD ITS PRIORITIES IN ORDER AND ACTUALLY INFORMED, EDUCATED AND UPLIFTED THE MASSES INSTEAD OF SHILLING FOR A GLOBAL EMPIRE OF ENDLESS WARS, OUTRAGEOUS ECONOMIC INEQUALITY, AND DEEPENING DEVASTATION OF NATURE AND THE ANIMAL WORLD,  HORRORS LIKE THESE WOULD HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED MANY YEARS, PERHAPS DECADES AGO.  EVERY SINGLE DAY SOCIAL BACKWARDNESS COLLECTS ITS OWN INNUMERABLE VICTIMS. 

pale blue horiz

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You Don’t Have To Go To Africa to Kill African Animals

Martha Rosenberg   


The Dark Side of Hunting

*Charles Darwin described the natural world while blasting away at it

T. Roosevelt did create natural refuges and great parks, but his bragadoccio macho instincts also made him an avid hunter.

T. Roosevelt did create natural refuges and great parks, but his bragadoccio macho instincts also made him an avid hunter and unrepentant imperialist.

Hunting in general is a declining sport, peaking in the 1970s and falling every year by as much as 10 percent, especially among the young. It is boring and not cool say young hunting drop outs. The problem is state Departments of Natural Resources’ funding is predicated on hunter revenues–hunters buy licenses that pay the salaries of state wildlife officials who then create hunting opportunities so they can sell hunters licenses. This means they encourage all kinds of “hunting opportunities” that the animal-loving public generally finds offensive and unethical.

“Clearly there is money in letting people like dentist Walter Palmer indulge their sick sadistic appetites. But is it right and should it be legal?…”

Many states, for example breed pheasants at taxpayer expense or partial taxpayer expense for “controlled” Dick Cheney-style hunts that provide sure shots. Some are open to children as young as ten. Controlled hunts “are the only places these young men and women can hunt and be assured of a good shot,” Jerry Rodeen of Pheasants Forever, told the State Journal-Register. Some states also enlist young people in the fun hobby of raising the birds to be shot.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation recruits adults and especially children to breed the birds in their own backyards. Participants in the Day-Old Pheasant Chick Program “receive the pheasant chicks in April, May or June. The pheasants can be released when they are 8 weeks old or older and no later than the end of New York’s pheasant hunting season, which varies according to region.” Hey, kids: grow baby pheasants…and then kill them!

–Most people decide the ethics of hunting on the basis of three things: what is the purpose, what is the method and what is the animal? When the purpose is braggadocio and the animal is majestic and endangered (like a lion), world opinion is clearly changing. Delta airlines recently announced it would no longer transport bloody animal trophies, for example, followed by other airlines.

When the animal is not endangered but the purpose is the fun of killing, opinions may be changing too, especially when kids are involved. Most parents would cringe at youth pastor Shawn Meyer’s remarks on his website, huntwithakid, “Five-year-olds and under will get more out of an outing if it’s plinking squirrels… or blowing a box of shells on doves than if it’s sitting motionless for hours on end.” What?

Still it is the arranged killing of lions, elephants, rhinos and leopards that has outraged the world–canned trophy hunting espoused by groups like the 41,000 member Safari Club International (SCI) which named former President George H. Bush, former Vice President Dan Quayle and Retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf among its members. To remove emphasis on its killing of cherished animals, Safari Club International created Sportsmen Against Hunger and Sportsmen against Cancer. “Hunters are doing something they love and helping others at the same time” is how SCI lawyer Doug Burdin lawyer puts it.

“Hey, kids: grow baby pheasants…and then kill them!”

Want to kill exotics? You can if the price is right.

You do not have to go to Africa to kill African animals. Pre-ordained slaughter also occurs in the US. Hunters at “high-fence” hunting ranches like 2,000-acre Circle E in Bedias, TX where people can shoot exotic species like wildebeest and zebra for $6,500 a head.

“Don’t call them hunters” wrote Port Huron Times Herald reporter Mike Eckert after viewing videotape from a high-fence game farm. “The enclosure wasn’t bigger than my back yard. Sick and dying deer were propped in front of killers who paid thousands of dollars to shoot them. For customers who were really slow to aim and shoot, deer were drugged.”

Another high-end canned hunting operation is Heartland Wildlife Ranches in Ethel, MO reported the St. Louis Post-Dispatch where “Hunters come from across the country to take aim at trophy animals such as whitetail deer, elk and zebra. A three-day hunt for water buffalo costs $4,000.”

In Indiana, where high-fence operations flourish, Sen. Pete Miller, R-Avon introduced legislation after a shocking four-part investigative series published last spring by the Indianapolis Star. His bill has yet to receive a hearing and a proposed high-fence ban led by state wildlife officers was overruled in court.

Clearly there is money in letting people like dentist Walter Palmer indulge their sick sadistic appetites. But is it right and should it be legal?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MARTHAROSENBERG-photo

Martha Rosenberg is an award-winning investigative public health reporter who covers the food, drug and gun industries. Her first book, Born With A Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks and Hacks Pimp The Public Health, is distributed by Random House. Rosenberg has appeared on CSPAN and NPR and lectured at medical schools and at the Mid-Manhattan Public Library.

pale blue horiz

FACT TO REMEMBER:
IF THE WESTERN MEDIA HAD ITS PRIORITIES IN ORDER AND ACTUALLY INFORMED, EDUCATED AND UPLIFTED THE MASSES INSTEAD OF SHILLING FOR A GLOBAL EMPIRE OF ENDLESS WARS, OUTRAGEOUS ECONOMIC INEQUALITY, AND DEEPENING DEVASTATION OF NATURE AND THE ANIMAL WORLD,  HORRORS LIKE THESE WOULD HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED MANY YEARS, PERHAPS DECADES AGO.  EVERY SINGLE DAY SOCIAL BACKWARDNESS COLLECTS ITS OWN INNUMERABLE VICTIMS. 

pale blue horiz

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Beyond Cecil the Lion: The Grisly and Unethical World of Wildlife Killing Contests

 ENVIRONMENT   Reynard Loki / AlterNet
THANK YOU ALTERNET

Every year across the United States, thousands of animals are killed in state-sanctioned gun-fests.

For many people, apparently the sight of animal carcasses constitutes a reason for joy. We are indeed, despite the glorious exceptions, by and large a dreadful species.

For many people, apparently the sight of animal carcasses constitutes a reason for joy. Poisoned  with selfishness, while claiming to have the ability for morality, we are indeed, by and large, a dreadful species. The arrogant scourge of nature.

August 4, 2015

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]cross America, wildlife-killing contests (WKCs) — multi-day gun events that often award prizes to the person who kills the most — are increasing in number and scope.More than 250 WKCs happened last year alone. The events are legal in every state except California, which became the first state to ban wildlife-killing contests in December.

The most targeted species is the coyote, but WKCs target a wide range of species: Wolves, bobcats, badgers, foxes, skunks, prairie dogs and birds are all in the crosshairs. “Each of these species is a key part of healthy, functioning ecosystems,” asserts the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD). “Killing contests devalue native wildlife and glorify wasteful killing, while disrupting natural processes … [WKCs] ignore the ecological value of their target species and can actually exacerbate conflicts with livestock. Peer-reviewed studies on coyotes and wolves demonstrate this result.”

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In December, CBD and nine other conservation groups including WildEarth Guardians, Rio Grande Chapter Sierra Club, Animal Protection Voters and Southwest Environmental Center, called for a ban on wildlife-killing contests in New Mexico after a national ranking gave the state the dubious distinction of holding more WKCs annually than any other state. Between August 2013 and July 2014, around 130 WKCs were held across the United States — at least 17 of them were held in New Mexico.

Less than a month later, SB 253, a bipartisan bill to ban coyote-killing contests in the state, was introduced by Senator Mark Moores (R-Albuquerque) and Representative Jeff Steinborn (D-Albuquerque). The co-sponsors emphasized that the bill would not prohibit the killing of coyotes to protect livestock, but opponents — mostly farmers and ranchers — maintained that the contests provided an incentive to reduce the predator population.

 

Both ranchers and farmers epitomize short-term, narrow, selfish thinking about nature and social issues in general. These two powerful lobbies are reinforced by the gun lobbies, always happy to use animals for target practice under any excuse imaginable. And the weight of largely unchallenged speciesist tradition only makes the elimination of such barbarities harder. The media, as usual, largely sit on the sidelines.——P. Greanville

“In wildlife killing contests, participants attempt to kill as many animals as possible for money, hundreds of even thousands of dollars, and prizes,” according to the Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare. “The events conclude at a checkout station where participants pile up the dead animals for photographs before dumping the bodies elsewhere.”

Conservationists aren’t the only ones up in arms about these horrific events. After one such contest in New Mexico in December, nearly 40 dead coyotes were unceremoniously dumped to rot in the desert near the Las Cruces airport, eliciting the ire of a local hunters’ group, which said it epitomized “the distastefulness of killing anything for blood sport and then throwing it in the public’s face.”

The Albuquerque Journal editorial board gave their support to the proposed legislation:

The 2015 version of a ban is a narrowly crafted bipartisan proposal that protects the rights of true sportsmen, ranchers and residents by ending one thing, and one thing only: the practice of shooting as many coyotes as quickly as possible. Because that’s what coyote-killing contests are all about – killing not because the animals pose a threat, or because the pelts and meat will be used, or because there’s a trophy to be mounted, but because it’s fun to shoot a whole lot of living things …

New Mexico has a long and proud history of hunting and ranching, and co-existing with nature. All require a respect for wildlife and its ecosystem. And like once-legal cockfighting before it, coyote-killing contests are about bloody death and nothing more. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in both chambers should take a close look at Moores and Steinborn’s legislation and pass it on for the governor’s signature so New Mexicans never have to look at a pile of coyote carcasses again.

While the bill was passed by the Senate, it was tabled in a House committee in February. Activists remain committed to pushing for the passage of this legislation, which is widely supported by wildlife scientists and researchers.Fifty scientists recently signed a letter supporting a ban on WKCs, citing peer-reviewed studies that show there is “no credible evidence that indiscriminate killing of coyotes or other predators effectively serves any genuine interest in managing other species, diffusing the primary argument of killing contest proponents that they help reduce livestock losses or increasing deer populations.”

“Most people are shocked to learn that it is legal to kill coyotes, foxes, bobcats and other wildlife as part of a tournament for prizes and recreational fun,” Camilla Fox, founder and executive director of Project Coyote, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “They’re even more shocked to learn that hundreds of such contests take place each year in the U.S. killing thousands of wild animals.”

Project Coyote, along with CBD and the Western Watersheds Project (WWP),filed a lawsuit in November against the Idaho Bureau of Land Management for granting a five-year permit for an annual, privately-sponsored WKC in the state. The yearly killing contest includes prizes for gunning down a wide variety of wildlife species, including wolves, coyotes, weasels, skunks, jackrabbits, raccoons and starlings, across a large section of eastern Idaho. The CBD and WWP also submitted an alternative Special Recreation Permit (SRP) to the BLM for a wildlife-viewing contest for the same dates and locations as the killing contests.

“It’s repugnant and shocking that wildlife-killing contests are still being allowed in the 21st century,” said Amy Atwood, CBD’s endangered species legal director. “In approving this contest, the BLM is out of step with an American public that no longer supports the slaughter of wildlife for sport. Indeed, more than 90,000 people submitted comments opposing the contest, yet the permit was still issued.”

Travis Bruner, WWP’s executive director, wrote in the Huffington Post that WKCs are not “hunting” in the traditional sense:

Only rarely are wildlife hunted for subsistence in the modern United States. With few exceptions, most of today’s hunters engage in what could only be described as a distortion of what was once a basic human survival strategy. Some modern hunters demonstrate respect and admiration for the natural world. But a killing contest is nothing but a violent slaughter of defenseless creatures where the trigger-pullers seek glory, not protein.

Though the Idaho BLM issued the killing contest permit, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG), which manages wildlife in trust for the public and determines hunting regulations in Idaho, also has the authority to stop the unnecessary carnage. In 2000, the IDFG Commission adopted a Predator Management Policy, stating that the department “will not support any contests or similar activities involving the taking of predators which may portray hunting in an unethical fashion, devalue the predator, and which may be offensive to the general public.” There can be no doubt that WKCs qualify for this kind of activity.

“Although it is too late to prevent Cecil’s appalling death, we can put an end to killing sprees here at home,” said Bethany Cotton, director of wildlife programs at WildEarth Guardians, in an email. “Thousands of our nation’s native animals are targets of killing contest participants’ bloodlust. These contests disrupt the natural balance of ecosystems, perpetuate false myths about keystone species, threaten public safety and disrupt quiet non-consumptive uses of our public lands.”

“Awarding prizes for wildlife-killing contests is both unethical and inconsistentwith our current understanding of natural systems,” said Michael Sutton, president of the California Fish and Game Commission. “Such contests are an anachronism and have no place in modern wildlife management.”

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FACT TO REMEMBER:
IF THE WESTERN MEDIA HAD ITS PRIORITIES IN ORDER AND ACTUALLY INFORMED, EDUCATED AND UPLIFTED THE MASSES INSTEAD OF SHILLING FOR A GLOBAL EMPIRE OF ENDLESS WARS, OUTRAGEOUS ECONOMIC INEQUALITY, AND DEEPENING DEVASTATION OF NATURE AND THE ANIMAL WORLD,  HORRORS LIKE THESE WOULD HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED MANY YEARS, PERHAPS DECADES AGO.  EVERY SINGLE DAY SOCIAL BACKWARDNESS COLLECTS ITS OWN INNUMERABLE VICTIMS. 

 

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Unchallenged euphemisms and “public relationese” have killed truth with impunity

EYE ON THE MEDIA | comment by PATRICE GREANVILLE

Sportsmen's Alliance CEO talks economy of hunting, conservation

[box] Unchallenged euphemisms and “public relationese” have killed truth with impunity. And we pay the price every single day.[/box]

The flatulence of professional journalists

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]any “professional” journalists pride themselves in their “objectivity” and integrity, and this is the central catechism of all journalism schools, but such pride is misplaced. The notion that journalists have performed a social service by presenting both sides of an issue is simply false, ludicrously false in fact (as Alex Cockburn once hilariously demonstrated, see below). Such putative professionalism masks intellectual laziness and cowardice, the latter, if we are to use some charity, often a necessity for those who simply want to keep their jobs in institutions where the rightwing and establishment viewpoint can be freely expressed and presented—and routinely is—without jeopardizing anyone’s livelihood or career, but the mere intimation of serious questioning of the status quo, or the infinite right of private property, can quickly terminate employment. After almost 150 years of such buffoonery, this mode of operation has created something resembling a dogma in the ambit of social discourse, and many respectable voices defend it as an exercise in fairness. Unsurprisingly, mass audiences have been trained to believe (and many journalists themselves have become convinced) that truth can be found by inquisitional geometry; that the reality of any situation invariably lies on a point between two opposing views. Truth, however, often refuses to fit such mechanistic formulas. For starters, there may be more than two legitimate sides to an issue, or, as it happens in many cases, there’s only one valid viewpoint, the other, “balancing” position, being utterly lacking in substance or moral weight, a mere cardboard witness.

The duty of true journalists is to present the facts, the truth, as they see it, not to hide behind convenient mechanistic formulas. Equally important, observing the lesson of the United States, in a healthy society they should always be ready to question those who use euphemisms for public consumption. Unfortunately, since ideological indoctrination is the chief pillar by which the capitalist system maintains its hold on the masses, and most practicing journalists have long sold their souls to the devil, no real changes are likely in this field until the country and the world see a true social revolution.

Cecil the Lion (momentarily) shakes the media

Screen Shot 2015-08-04 at 2.30.56 PM

The murder of Cecil the lion by a compulsive hunter has provoked such an unprecedented furor that the mass media for a moment felt compelled to join the majority—popular—viewpoint, and report the issue in a manner that accurately represented the depravity of hunting.
…
Now, however, the pendulum may be swinging back in the name of “objectivity” and fairness (“We may have gone too far in crucifying the hunters…”), and probably discreet pressure from powerful individuals and groups, asking for their day in the court of public opinion, is also having its effect. The media are a soft touch anyway, especially when it comes to pressure from the well-heeled, their natural constituency.

The upshot is that once again “respectable” voices are being given a tribune to defend “responsible hunting,” the “harvesting” of animals, and many other grotesque oxymorons, all in the name of “conservation”—the last refuge of these scoundrels, and one of the most absurd arguments in the long and repulsive history of crime justifications.

Hunting and particularly trophy hunting have not been discussed very often on network television. Big Media have long been largely reticent on this issue. The exception perhaps was CBS’ The Guns of Autumn, aired in 1975 to widespread surprise among animalists and rage and consternation in the crowd of backwardos who love using animals for live target practice. (See this page still ranting about Guns of Autumn). Let’s hope that the current wave of public interest and newfangled awareness about these issues prompts a sufficiently robust mobilization to compel the politicians to come up with something concrete, not merely token  legislation. One murdered lion, elephant, or rhino, is one too many. For not only does humanity give itself the privilege to kill billions of sentient creatures for food at a time when we finally have a plethora of attractive and harmless alternatives, or destroy the ecosystems on which countless other animals (and ourselves) depend for survival, but it continues to tolerate the idea that animals can also be killed for kicks, for pleasure, for “sport” as the euphemism goes, as a legal act and on the whim of some depraved moron.

The way society decides these and other grave issues will depend on how the existing media report them. I can only hope that, for truth to finally emerge, their vaunted objectivity will not be part of the equation.

[box] Patrice Greanville is founding editor of The Greanville Post. [/box]

Lizard

ADDENDA
Mallika Rao points out in her analysis of the bloodthirsty dentist’s defense—Walter Palmer—his arguments, like most of his brethren’s, are riddled with euphemisms, itself a polite word for intentional deception to avoid condemnation.  Where would such people be if the media stuck to plain, unvarnished English and a more confrontational posture toward entrenched power?  Such questions are  broached by the legendary Alex Cockburn in a timeless sendup of  media pretensions and their glorification of a false objectivity.  Read

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1. CBS This Morning
Trophy hunting is big business in Africa S (5:34)

AUGUST 4, 2015, 8:31 AM|Trophy hunting is big business in Africa. One estimate puts the economic impact at $200 million a year. Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer reportedly paid $50,000 to kill a lion in Zimbabwe. He and a fellow hunter, Dr. Jan Seski, are now in seclusion. U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance president and CEO Nick Pinizzotto joins “CBS This Morning” to discuss how his group lobbies to defend hunter’s rights.

 

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2.
Here’s Why Walter Palmer Keeps Saying He ‘Took’ Cecil The Lion

Kill euphemisms can be a hunter’s best friend.

Mallika Rao Arts Reporter, The Huffington Post

In this undated photo provided by the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Cecil the lion rests in Hwange National Park, in Hwange, Zimbabwe. Two Zimbabweans arrested for illegally hunting a lion appeared in court Wednesday, July 29, 2015. The head of Zimbabwe’s safari association said the killing was unethical and that it couldn’t even be classified as a hunt, since the lion killed by an American dentist was lured into the kill zone. (Andy Loveridge/Wildlife Conservation Research Unit via AP)

In this undated photo provided by the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Cecil the lion rests in Hwange National Park, in Hwange, Zimbabwe.  (Andy Loveridge/Wildlife Conservation Research Unit via AP)

[dropcap]G[/dropcap]eorge Orwell once wrote that political language “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.” The same could be said of the language of the hunter: 

I had no idea that the lion I took was a known, local favorite, was collared and part of a study until the end of the hunt … I deeply regret that my pursuit of an activity I love and practice responsibly and legally resulted in the taking of this lion.

The words come from Walter Palmer, arguably the world’s most infamous dentist. He sent them to patients in a two-pronged letter. In it, he apologizes for his murder of Cecil the Lion — a beloved African male with a black mane and scientific significance — and for the “disruption” the illegal kill caused Palmer’s now shuttered Minnesota practice, River Bluff Dental.

Critics point out his words ring as more contrite about the latter crisis than the former. What some are calling Palmer’s non-apology for the death of Cecil uses the obtuse and passive wordplay characteristic of the shadiest mea culpas in American history, from Ulysses S. Grant’s to Donald Sterling’s. He paints Cecil’s death as an outlier, insisting throughout his email that the hunt was sold to him as “legal” and “responsible.” Not once does he question the frailty of those terms in an industry reliant on players in impoverished countries (grotesque amounts of poaching are de rigeur in Zimbabwe, as any seasoned hunter knows).

But his most egregious abuse of the English language is his smallest: that little verb, “to take.”

Used commonly among hunters, the euphemism reveals a culture of Orwellian doublespeak prevalent throughout the hunting world, meant to assuage critics and lure the conflicted curious.

One of the few critiques of the dentist’s choice of verb came from Jimmy Kimmel, who quipped, “You take aspirin. You killed the animal.” 

Kill euphemisms are tailored for the style of hunt. Trophy hunters like Palmer favor “taking,” or “collecting,” a nod to the golden era of safari hunting, when celebrated British nobles dragged entire families of zebra and gazelle back to their gloomy castles as carcasses. Today, we hear the buck hunter’s analog more often: “harvesting.” This is reserved for those who kill for food — deer, turkeys, elk — usually in their home country. Lively as it is, the debate around the rhetoric of domestic hunting sheds light on the more exotic sin of “taking” a lion. 

“Harvest,” with its undertones of a bygone era of ripe wheat fields and feasting pilgrims, has become the rhetorical weapon of choice for hunting organizations liaising with the American public. On its website, the Arizona Game and Fish Commission slips the word in with two saintlier aims: listing only the “management,” “preservation” and “harvest” of wildlife as its mission. Nowhere in the statement does the word “killing,” or even “hunting,” appear.

Nearly identical language attends an amendment passed this May by the Texas state legislature to protect the rights of hunters in the face of what one NRA director called “extreme animal rights groups” (itself a neat turning of the rhetoric of “extremism”).

At the website of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the Disneyfication of the term reaches new heights, with the option of printing one’s own “My First Harvest” certificate. Field questions include, “What kind of animal did you harvest?” complete with a drop-down menu specifying type, family and species. There’s even an option to upload a picture of the “harvested” animal, as if it weren’t shot dead, but adopted. 

The perversity of the trick hasn’t escaped ordinary rifle-toting citizens. On hunting forums, the topic inspires entire threads. Some argue that sugarcoating what they do only isolates hunters from the general public, a consequence no rights-lobbying shooter wants. Then there is the whiff of political correctness surrounding the whole thing, practically a dirty phrase in these forums. 

A debate begun in 2003 on Rimfire Central, a pro-gun website, shows how rapidly the conversation can splinter. Titled “Hunting euphemisms: caving to the PC crowd?” the thread opens with a poster — “Bill Bryan” — explaining that he’s recently returned to hunting after a spell, only to notice “magazine writers, brochures from gun makers, websites, etc. using a new kind of lingo.” The change he typifies as a clean swap: “saying ‘harvested’ instead of ‘shot’ and ‘take’ instead of ‘kill.’”

“Is this,” he wonders, “Orwellian, or what? Is it still OK to say ‘kill’ and ‘shoot’?”

[dropcap]E[/dropcap]ven the first few responses vary wildly. One commenter differentiates based on type and purpose, writing that “one KILLS Rats, Mice, and other vermin. However one HARVEST [sic] game animals that he intends to consume for food.” Immediately below, a writer dismisses all synonyms for killing as “PC BS.” The debate briefly derails when a poster accuses Bryan of actually being a secret “‘hug-a-tree’ sort of guy or Peta lover … just trying to start some BS here!!”

Stripped to its core, the debate over the rightness of the word “kill” is really about killing itself: is hunting wrong or right? Here is where semantics confuse an already confusing issue. The statistics on hunting as conservation — a link that’s led to words like “culling” and “harvesting” in place of “killing” — remain murky. A slice of the data in favor of big-game hunting of the sort Palmer does relies on the self-reporting of hunters, who may well claim to prefer shooting elderly male animals in unscenic venues (the best hunting scenario, from an ecological perspective) to slant research in their favor. 

They would be wise to do so. In the age of the Internet, PR nightmares lead to actual action, from California’s ban on hunting with hounds — a bit of legislative damage control after a photograph leaked of the state’s Fish & Game Commission president grinning next to a dead cougar he shot — to the wave of international airline bans on dead animal cargo, instated after a picture of a reality TV huntress lying next to a bull giraffe she felled went viral. 

Before the age of the shareable image, those who would sway the public understood the power of language. In his 1996 book, In The Company of Animals: A Study of Human-Animal Relationships, ethicist James Serpell tracked various euphemisms for killing and maiming animals. Many revolve around vivisection, or surgery done on live animals, often for research purposes. 

Vivisectors “do not kill their animal subjects,” Serpell writes. “They ‘dispatch,’ ‘terminate,’ or ‘sacrifice’ them,” just as hunters “are only ‘harvesting,’ ‘bagging,’ or ‘taking’ the animals they shoot to death.”  

As in hunting, leaders in the fur and meat industries are fluent in this alternate language. Furriers routinely describe animals as succumbing to euthanasia — a misuse of a word that literally means a mercy killing, done to alleviate the suffering of the killed (though animals in fur farms may well be living miserable enough lives to justify the usage). Serpell cites an edition of the British Meat Trades Journal published near his time of writing, advising meat purveyors to divorce their product from “the act of slaughter,” by swapping out the words “butcher” and “slaughterhouse” with what Serpell calls “American euphemisms”: “meat plant,” “meat factory.”

Even before the specter of government bans, shooters had their lingo. Centuries ago, British fox hunters developed synonyms for killing, some more chilling than the word itself: “bowled over,” “rolled over,” “brought to book,” “punished,” “dealt with,” “accounted for.” In a 2012 essay against the euphemistic creep in American hunting circles, Chris Eberhart, a bowhunter and outdoor writer in Michigan, described the surreality he experienced shooting in Germany:

German hunters never use the word blood. The euphemism for blood is the word sweat. And no animal is ever wounded by a German hunter.  Instead, wounded game is described as sick. A non hunter could listen to two German hunters talk about wounding an animal and tracking and have absolutely no idea what they were talking about.

In contrast with the euphemisms of today — intended to endear the public to the cause — European code words came about expressly to exclude. Hunting was the sport of the elite, and elitism thrives on inside knowledge. As Eberhart points out, to regular folk in an old country, hunters speak an incomprehensible language.

American coding traces to a philosophical shift. The great early 20th-century environmentalist Aldo Leopold pioneered the idea of game as a kind of crop. The Rimfire Central debate ends on this note as well. Citing Leopold’s 1933 book Game Management, the thread’s final commenter writes that “effective communication means knowing your audience.” Leopold, the commenter suggests, communicated effectively:

 Lizard

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]e have learned that game, to be successfully conserved, must be positively produced rather than negatively protected. We have learned that game is a crop, which Nature will grow and grow abundantly, provided only that we furnish the seed and a suitable environment.

This language is echoed by trophy hunters, who defend their actions as ultimately beneficial to the ecosystem. (Though Leopold, who changed his views on predator eradication by the end of his life, would surely disagree with them.) A favorite example is of the white rhino, a near-extinct species brought back from the brink, partly due to private South African landowners eager to entice wealthy Westerners to pay to shoot.

The case is provocative — some estimates place the population’s rise from 100 to 11,000 from 1960 to 2007 — even while limited trophy hunting continued. But crediting hunting for the rise misrepresents the reality of the conservation effort, a multidimensional approach that has involved fertilization intervention by researchers, as well as sweeping limitations on poaching and, yes, hunting — both activities of which were blamed for wiping the species’ numbers down so low in the first place.  

In the case of Walter Palmer, the underbelly of the word shows. What he calls “taking” has come to mean an explicit series of events. We know Palmer and a group of men baited a lion out of safe land with a dead animal strapped to a vehicle. The dentist shot the tricked animal with a bow, piercing Cecil’s flesh. The group then stalked the wounded lion for 40 hours until Palmer had a chance to shoot and kill (and claim) his paid-for trophy with a rifle. One, some or all of the men beheaded and skinned the lion, trying before they left the carcass to extract the tagged collar that proved their downfall. This, now, is “taking.”

Unfortunately for Palmer, another word describes the operation: “poaching.” 

We reproduce below a sampler of responses to Mallika’s piece, which add more information and insight on this tragic event.

What he’s saying is if I knew there was going to be such an uproar, I would have killed a lion who wasn’t famous.
 
Mattie Marie

I don’t want any physical harm to come to this man, and am confused when people call for it, but I won’t shed a tear for him when he loses every dime he has. I imagine he’s feeling pretty terrified and alone right now….just like Cecil did in the 40 hours that they tracked his wounded body. I’m kind of liking that he knows how that beautiful creature felt right before he was killed . Metophorically, Mr. Palmer’s life is over, and I don’t think one person in the world cares.
 
Dick Steel

@ Anna Draper – Pretty much.
 
Linda Shambaugh ·

Works at Self-employed
Mattie Marie I don’t think he is scared at all. I heard on the news tonight that even after wounding Cecil, they left him to go home and sleep that night and resume hunting in the morning. Then, after killing him and skinnng him (even after what he knew was wrong) and trying to damage Cecil’s tracking device, he wanted to go hunt elephant the next day. The guy has no feelings whatsoever.
Unlike · Reply · 108 · Jul 31, 2015 8:10pm
Show 10 more replies in this thread
 
Brenda Lawson

What made him think that this or any other Living Creature was “HIS” to “Take”?
Unlike · Reply · 574 · Jul 31, 2015 6:25pm
 
Steve Lake

Permission was given just over 2000 years ago……….Genesis 1:26.
Unlike · Reply · 9 · Jul 31, 2015 7:42pm
Shearl Brinson ·

TSgt/E-6 at USAF Retired
Steve Lake Very good answer!
Sheryl R. Nance ·

Bakersfield, California
Steve Lake , scripture tells us that man was to rule over all of God’s creation. Meaning that we are to manage his creation here on earth while being good stewards of the same. I doubt seriously that hunting, torturing, and killing of any animal for sport would be an example of good stewardship!
 
Victoria Baker ·

Works at Self
Don’t forget another salient detail about the hunt, that makes it all the more egregious. Once they had baited the lion away from the park, the two helpers spotlighted him,which blinds and thus paralyzes any animal, then Palmer shot him with the bow. Spotlight hunting is massively illegal in many jurisdictions and is thought to be unethical in many more. So please add that into your description if you want to really understand what happened. The “pro” hunter, who was arrested, told about the spotlighting.

It’s hard for me to get the picture out of my mind of what they did to this regal animal who trusted people enough to sit for photos. I hate humans, we are a blight on the planet.
Unlike · Reply · 131 · Aug 1, 2015 12:12am
 
Catherine Jordan ·

Producer at Documentary Film Valentino’s Ghost
Gotta agree with you there Victoria.
Like · Reply · 10 · Aug 1, 2015 6:01am
 
Danette Johnson Sumerford ·

General H. H. Arnold, Wiesbaden, Germany
Didn’t know that about the spotlight. As if it couldn’t get any more horrific. frown emoticon
Like · Reply · 11 · Aug 1, 2015 5:24pm
 
Jan Stevens ·

University of Houston
And you know those guides had to have recognized Cecil.
Like · Reply · 20 · Aug 1, 2015 5:25pm
 
Craig Thompson

The term “harvest” also implies a crop that is planted and controlled by man, again pushing the concept that animals are just there for man’s purposes.

Another of the problems with some of the terms, such as “culling” or “thinning”, is that people that coined and use the terms have started to believe that is what they are doing. Especially true when they fool themselves into thinking they are doing it for “conservation”. When a hunter “culls” a herd, what (s)he is doing is preferentially killing the biggest, strongest and best of the herd, removing the best genes from the pool. Nature culls a herd by removing the weakest or impaired through predators, disease, weather, etc, leaving the healthiest to reproduce. Alas, a weakened, whimpy looking animal head just doesn’t look that great on a wall and just doesn’t fulfill the role of a SPCD (Small Penis Compensation Device).
Like · Reply · 222 · Jul 31, 2015 7:07pm
 
Will Shippey ·

Clemson University
Im going to go out on a limb and ask do you eat meat? If the answer is yes then you need to realize that if you aren’t killing it yourself someone is doing it for you.

If a hunter kills something to eat I see absolutely no issue with it provided he has the appropriate tag/license for it and is following the rules the local wildlife management has in place. I also don’t have an issue with a herder killing an predator that is killing his herd. I do however have an issue with someone needlessly killing an animal for a trophy. Killing animals to provide food is something humans have been doing since the dawn of time and provided it is kept within limits is going to keep happening. If you want to spend energy fighting that go ahead, but I think you would be better off spending energy more productively by arguing against trophy hunting of protected species and better treatment of farm livestock.
 
Terre Watt

Will Shippey When is the last time you ate a lion? Do you see how absurd your comment is?
Like · Reply · 36 · Jul 31, 2015 10:38pm
 
Will Shippey ·

Clemson University
Terre Watt I’m only saying people including the author of this article shouldn’t push hunters for food into the same category as hunters for trophies. I also wouldn’t be opposed to someone killing a lion if it was wiping out some poor African farmers livestock or was killing people.
Like · Reply · 8 · Aug 1, 2015 12:28am
 
Birinderjit Dhillon

I remember my dad firing a young guy at the farm for killing a pheasant, and then destroying the nest with fledglings in it. He was livid. This brings it all back, he was absolutely right to do what he did. Palmer did the same thing, and there are 20 cubs and their mothers now in mortal danger, because he took what wasn’t his to “take”.
Like · Reply · 56 · Jul 31, 2015 11:37pm
 
Ravi Kanwal ·

Aliso Viejo, California
What he’s actually saying is that had he known it was going to cause such an uproar, he have gone the extra length to destroy the tracking collar !!
Like · Reply · 48 · Jul 31, 2015 7:55pm
 
Chris Kliemt ·

Nassau Community College
Stop with the semantics , he lured Cecil away from his family, murdered and butchered him. In exchange he has ruined his own and will find no place to hide.
Like · Reply · 28 · Aug 1, 2015 6:45am
 
Chris Kliemt ·

Nassau Community College
Apologized to his patients for the inconvenience but never mentioned the lion
Like · Reply · 6 · Aug 1, 2015 8:55pm
 
Karyn Errington ·

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Chris Kliemt – or the people who make a living by tourism.
Like · Reply · Aug 3, 2015 12:32pm
 
 
Polly Miha

Palmer KILLED Cecil because he wanted the trophy. A mangy old lion would not suit him, he wanted a “perfect” trophy! The reason they “tracked” the wounded animal for 40 hours, was NOT to put is out of its misery but rather to preserve the “trophy” It would have done Palmer no good to have a “trophy” with a hole in its head or a severely damaged pelt! Please really think of the horror of these “great white (yes, mostly whilte) hunters” – they are pathetic little egotists!
Like · Reply · 19 · Aug 1, 2015 3:39pm
 
Chris Kliemt ·

Nassau Community College
This dentist is shaking right now.
Like · Reply · Aug 2, 2015 5:04pm
 
Chris Kliemt ·

Nassau Community College
NO
Like · Reply · Aug 2, 2015 5:04pm
 
Chris Kliemt ·

Nassau Community College
PLACE
Like · Reply · Aug 2, 2015 5:04pm
Show 1 more reply in this thread
 
Mary Ledford ·

University of Wisconsin–Superior
I would never trust this coward as far as I could throw an elephant. He knew exactly what he was doing, and I hope that he never gets to keep the trophy. That would be just plain sick.
 
Mattie Marie

The guide gave a statement that as soon as the lion was killed Palmer was asking him to find an elephant to shoot. He didn’t even feel bad that he had killed a collared lion. They hid the evidence and mutilated the body.
 
Christopher Neal

He has a lot more to worry about than keeping the trophy. The authorities in Zimbabwe want him extradited, and rightly so.
Like · Reply · 31 · Jul 31, 2015 7:42pm
 
Robert Lewis ·

Kent State University
Christopher Neal And the Feds want to talk to him ASAP.

pale blue horiz
3.

Puncturing media pretensions—and the most sacred of cows: the press’ devotion to “objectivity”.

The Political Function of PBS

When tedium is totalizing

Many J-schools continue to regard PBS’ Mac Neil-Lehrer Report as the gold standard for “professional journalism” but this adoration only underscores the myopic acceptance of corporate values in the reporting of reality.  Meantime, as media critic Alex Cockburn dissects here, the Newshour continues to exude the priggish civility of those who can speak of great injuries at several removes…—P. Greanville

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN, Editor, Counterpunch
REPOSTED BY READER REQUESTS 

[dropcap]Y[/dropcap]EARS AGO, when the nightly program was mandatory viewing in every liberal home from Montauk to Santa Monica, I wrote a parody of the McNeil-Lehrer Show, as it was then called before McNeil hailed down his colors and moved on. The piece ran in Harper’s, and though it prompted a good deal of laughter, there were a surprising number of letters from outraged PBS viewers, wailing about my lack of respect. It was as though I had publicly kicked a respected greybeard.

The other night, glancing Lehrer’s News Hour I shook my head yet again at the precision of my gibes. This particular show was about the efforts of Ken Tomlinson, formerly of Readers’ Digest and Voice of America, to purge PBS of all liberal taint. From the right there was a nutcase from The American Spectator called George Neumayr and from the left but of course there was no one from the left. There never is. There was a “moderate” from the center right called Bill Reed.

JEFFREY BROWN (moderator): Welcome to both of you. Mr. Neumayr Do you see a liberal bias in public broadcasting?

GEORGE NEUMAYR: I do. I see a pervasive bias. I applaud Ken Tomlinson for making an attempt to correct it

JEFFREY BROWN: Mr. Reed, do you see a liberal bias?

BILL REED: I think this is really nonsense. You know, for over 30 years, William F. Buckley was on public television, and I carried him proudly in the stations that I`ve managed in my career. He`s a fine journalist, and so is Bill Moyers.

JEFFREY BROWN: So Mr. Reed, what do you believe is causing Mr. Tomlinson to raise these questions?

BILL REED: You know, I don`t know. I don`t know.

Feel yourself dozing off?

Now, there were important historical reasons for the rise of this narcotic show. So, without further ado, I give my parody, as it appeared nearly 25 years ago, in august 1982, under the title The Tedium Twins

ROBERT MACNEIL (voice over): A Galilean preacher claims he is the Redeemer and says the poor are blessed. Should he be crucified?

(Titles)

MACNEIL: Good evening. The Roman procurator in Jerusalem is trying to decide whether a man regarded by many as a saint should be put to death. Pontius Pilate is being urged by civil libertarians to intervene in what is seen here in Rome as being basically a local dispute. Tonight, the crucifixion debate. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, the provinces of Judaea and Galilee have always been trouble spots, and this year is no exception. The problem is part religious, part political, and in many ways a mixture of both. The Jews believe in one god. Discontent in the province has been growing, with many local businessmen complaining about the tax burden. Terrorism, particularly in Galilee, has been on the increase. In recent months, a carpenter’s son from the town of Nazareth has been attracting a large following with novel doctrines and faith healing. He recently entered Jerusalem amid popular acclaim, but influential Jewish leaders fear his power. Here in Alexandria the situation is seen as dangerous. Robin?

MACNEIL: Recently in Jerusalem on a fact-finding mission for the Emperor’s Emergency Task Force on Provincial Disorders was Quintilius Maximus. Mr. Maximus, how do you see the situation?

MAXIMUS: Robin, I had occasion to hear one of this preacher’s sermons a few months ago and talk with his aides. There is no doubt in my mind that he is a threat to peace and should be crucified.

MACNEIL: Pontius Pilate should wash his hands of the problem?

MAXIMUS: Absolutely.

MACNEIL: I see. Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Now for a view from Mr. Simon, otherwise known as Peter. He is a supporter of Christ and has been standing by in a Jerusalem studio. Robin?

MACNEIL: Mr. Simon Peter, why do you support Christ?

SIMON PETER: He is the Son of God and presages the Second Coming. If I may, I would like to read some relevant passages from the prophet Isaiah.

MACNEIL: Thank you, but I’m afraid we’ll have to break in there. We’ve run out of time. Goodnight, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MACNEIL: Sleep well, Jim.

LEHRER: I hope you sleep well, too, Robin.

MACNEIL: I think I will. Well, good night again, Jim.

LEHRER: Goodnight, Robin.

MACNEIL: We’ll be back again tomorrow night. I’m Robert MacNeil Good night.

Admirers of the ‘MacNeil/Lehrer Report’ – and there are many of them – often talk about it in terms normally reserved for unpalatable but nutritious breakfast foods: unalluring, perhaps, to the frivolous news consumer, but packed full of fiber. It is commended as the sort of news analysis a serious citizen, duly weighing the pros and cons of world history, would wish to masticate before a thoughtful browse through the Federalist Papers, a chat with spouse about civic duties incumbent on them on the morrow, and final blameless repose.

The promotional material for the ‘Report’ has a tone of reverence of the sort usually employed by people reading guidebooks to each other in a French cathedral: ‘The week-nightly newscast’s unique mix of information, expert opinion, and debate has foreshadowed an industry trend toward longer and more detailed coverage, while at the same time helping to reveal a growing public appetite for informational television. Nearly 4.5 million viewers watch the “MacNeil/ Lehrer Report” each night during the prime viewing season. …’

‘A program with meat on its bones,’ said the Association for Continuing Higher Education, in presenting its 1981 Leadership Award. ‘The “MacNeil/ Lehrer Report” goes beyond the commercial networks’ rushed recital of news to bring us in-depth coverage of single issues. … There is a concern for ideas rather than video images and they accord us the unusual media compliment of not telling us what to think, but allowing us to draw our own conclusions after we weigh conflicting views.’ And the handout concludes in triumph with some findings from a 1980 Roper poll: ‘Three quarters of those polled said they had discovered pros and cons on issues on which they had not had opinions beforehand.’

ROBERT MACNEIL (voice over): Should one man own another?

(Titles)

MACNEIL: Good evening. The problem is as old as man himself. Do property rights extend to the absolute ownership of one man by another? Tonight, the slavery problem. Jim?

LEHRER: Robin, advocates of the continuing system of slavery argue that the practice has brought unparalleled benefits to the economy. They fear that new regulations being urged by reformers would undercut America’s economic effectiveness abroad. Reformers, on the other hand, call for legally binding standards and even for a phased reduction in the slave force to something like 75 percent of its present size. Charlayne Hunter- Gault is in Charleston. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: Robin and Jim, I have here in Charleston, Mr. Ginn, head of the Cottongrowers Association. Robin?

MACNEIL: Mr. Ginn, what are the arguments for unregulated slavery?

GINN: Robin, our economic data show that attempts at regulation of working hours, slave quarters, and so forth would reduce productivity and indeed would be widely resented by the slaves themselves.

MACNEIL: You mean, the slaves would not like new regulations? They would resent them?

GINN: Exactly. Any curbing of the slave trade would offer the Tsar dangerous political opportunities in western Africa, and menace the strategic slave-ship routes.

LEHRER: Thank you, Mr. Ginn. Robin?

MACNEIL: Thank you, Mr. Ginn and Jim. The secretary of the Committee for Regulatory Reform in Slavery is Eric Halfmeasure. Mr. Halfmeasure, give us the other side of the story.

HALFMEASURE: Robin, I would like to make one thing perfectly clear. We are wholeheartedly in favor of slavery. We just see abuses that diminish productivity and reduce incentives for free men and women to compete in the marketplace. Lynching, tarring and feathering, rape, lack of holidays, and that sort of thing. One recent study suggests that regulation could raise productivity by 15 percent.

MACNEIL: I see. Thank you, Mr. Halfmeasure. Mr. Ginn?

GINN: Our studies show the opposite.

MACNEIL: Jim?

LEHRER: Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: A few critics of slavery argue that it should be abolished outright. One of them is Mr. Garrison. Mr. Garrison, why abolish slavery?

GARRISON: It is immoral for one man …

MACNEIL: Mr. Garrison, we’re running out of time, I’m afraid. Let me very quickly get some other points of view. Mr. Ginn, you think slavery is good?

GINN: Yes.

MACNEIL: And you, Mr. Halfmeasure, think it should be regulated.

HALFMEASURE: Yes.

MACNEIL: Well, I’ve got you to disagree, haven’t I? (Laughter) That’s all we’ve got time for tonight. Goodnight, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MACNEIL: Did you sleep well last night?

LEHRER: I did, thank you.

MACNEIL: That’s good. So did I. We’ll be back again tomorrow night. I’m Robert MacNeil Good night.

The ‘MacNeil/Lehrer Report’ started in October 1975, in the aftermath of Watergate. It was a show dedicated to the proposition that there are two sides to every question, a valuable corrective in a period when the American people had finally decided that there were absolutely and definitely not two sides to every question. Nixon was a crook who had rightly been driven from office; corporations were often headed by crooks who carried hot money around in suitcases; federal officials were crooks who broke the law on the say-so of the president.

It was a dangerous moment, for a citizenry suddenly imbued with the notion that there is not only a thesis and antithesis, but also a synthesis, is a citizenry, capable of all manner of harm to the harmonious motions of the status quo.

Thus came the ‘MacNeil/ Lehrer Report,’ sponsored by public-television funds and by the most powerful corporate forces in America, in the form of Exxon, ‘AT&T and the Bell System,’ and other upstanding bodies. Back to Sunday school went the excited viewers, to be instructed that reality, as conveyed to them by television, is not an exciting affair of crooked businessmen and lying politicians but a serious continuum in which parties may disagree but in which all involved are struggling manfully and disinterestedly for the public weal.

The narcotizing, humorless properties of the ‘MacNeil/Lehrer Report,’ familiar to anyone who has felt fatigue creep over him at 7:40 Eastern time, are crucial to the show. Tedium is of the essence, since the all-but- conscious design of the program is to project vacuous dithering (‘And now, for another view of Hitler …’) into the mind of the viewers, until they are properly convinced that there is not one answer to ‘the problem,’ but two or even three, and that since two answers are no better than none, they might as well not bother with the problem at all.

The techniques employed by the show enhance this distancing and anesthetizing. The recipe is unvarying. MacNeil and Lehrer exchange modest gobbets of information with each other about the topic under discussion. Then, with MacNeil crouching – rather like Kermit the Frog in old age – down to the left and peering up, a huge face appears on the screen and discussion is under way. The slightest discommoding exchange, some intemperate observation on the part of the interviewee, causes MacNeil to bat the ball hastily down to Washington, where Lehrer sedately sits with his interviewee.

By fits and starts, with Jim batting back to Robin and Robin batting across to Charlayne, the program lurches along. The antagonists are rarely permitted to joust with one another and ideally are sequestered on their large screens. Sometimes, near the end of the show, the camera will reveal that these supposed antagonists are in fact sitting chummily, shoulder to shoulder, around the same table as Lehrer thus indicating to the viewer that, while opinions may differ, all are united in general decency of purpose. Toward the very end, MacNeil’s true role becomes increasingly exposed as he desperately tries to suppress debate and substantive argument, with volley after volley of ‘We’re nearly out of time,’ ‘Congressman, in ten seconds could you’ and the final, relieved, ‘That’s all for tonight.’

It’s even important that MacNeil and Lehrer say good night to each other so politely every evening. In that final, sedate nocturnal exchange everything is finally resolved, even though nothing has been resolved. We can all go to bed now.

And so to bed we go. The pretense is that viewers, duly presented with both sides of the case, will spend the next segment of the evening weighing the pro against the con and coming up with the answer. It is, in fact, enormously difficult to recall anything that anyone has ever said on a ‘MacNeil/Lehrer Report,’ because the point has been to demonstrate that since everything can be contradicted, nothing is worth remembering. The show praised above all others for content derives its attention entirely from form: the unvarying illustration that if one man can be found to argue that cannibalism is bad, another can be found to argue that it is not.

Actually, this is an overstatement. ‘MacNeil/ Lehrer’ hates such violent extremes, and, by careful selection of the show’s participants, the show tries to make sure that the viewer will not be perturbed by any views overly critical of the political and business establishment.

ROBERT MACNEIL (voice over): Should one man eat another?

(Titles)

MACNEIL: Good evening. Reports from the Donner Pass indicate that survivors fed upon their companions. Tonight, should cannibalism be regulated? Jim?

LEHRER: Robin, the debate pits two diametrically opposed sides against each other: the Human Meat-eaters Association, who favor a free market in human flesh, and their regulatory opponents in Congress and the consumer movement. Robin?

MACNEIL: Mr. Tooth, why eat human flesh?

TOOTH: Robin, it is full of protein and delicious too. Without human meat, our pioneers would be unable to explore the West properly. This would present an inviting opportunity to the French, who menace our pioneer routes from the north.

MACNEIL: Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Now for another view of cannibalism. Bertram Brussell-Sprout is leading the fight to control the eating of animal fats and meats. Mr. Sprout, would you include human flesh in this proposed regulation?

SPROUT: Most certainly, Jim. Our studies show that some human flesh available for sale to the public is maggot-ridden, improperly cut, and often incorrectly graded. We think the public should be protected from such abuses.

MACNEIL: Some say it is wrong to eat human flesh at all. Mr. Prodnose, give us this point of view.

PRODNOSE: Robin, eating people is wrong. We say …

MACNEIL: I’m afraid we’re out of time. Good night, Jim, etc., etc.

Trudging back through the ‘MacNeil/ Lehrer’ scripts, the hardy reader will soon observe how extraordinarily narrow is the range of opinion canvassed by a show dedicated to dispassionate examination of the issues of the day. The favored blend is usually a couple of congressmen or senators, barking at each other from either side of the fence, corporate chieftains, government executives, ranking lobbyists, and the odd foreign statesman. The mix is ludicrously respectable, almost always heavily establishment in tone. Official spokesmen of trade and interest groups are preferred over people who only have something interesting to say.

This constriction of viewpoint is particularly conspicuous in the case of energy, an issue dear to the ‘MacNeil/Lehrer Report.’ ‘Economics of Nuclear Power,’ for example, was screened on November 25, 1980, and purported to examine why a large number of nuclear utilities were teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Mustered to ponder the issue we had the following rich and varied banquet: the president of the Virginia Electric and Power Company; the vice president (for nuclear operations) of Commonwealth Edison of Chicago; a vice president (responsible for scrutinizing utility investments) at Paine Webber; and the president of the Atomic Industrial Forum. The viewers of ‘MacNeil/ Lehrer’ did not, you may correctly surmise, hear much critical opinion about nuclear power on that particular evening.

On May 1, 1981, the ‘Report’ examined ‘the problems and prospects of getting even more oil out of our ground.’ Participants in the discussion about oil glut included some independent oil drillers, and ‘experts’ from Merrill Lynch, Phillips Petroleum Company, and the Rand Corporation.

At least on May 1 the viewers had more than one person saying the same thing (‘regulation is bad’). On March 27 they were invited to consider the plans of the Reagan administration for a rebuilt navy. The inquiring citizen was offered a trip around the battleship Iowa in the company of MacNeil, and an extremely meek interview, conducted by both MacNeil and Lehrer, of the Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman. No dissenting views were allowed to intrude, beyond the deferential inquiries of MacNeil and Lehrer, both of whom, it should be said, are very bad interviewers, usually ignorant and always timid. By contrast, Ted Koppel of ABC’s ‘Nightline’ is a veritable tiger in interrogatory technique.

The spectrum of opinion thus offered is one that ranges from the corporate right to cautious center-liberal. One should not be misled, by the theatrical diversity of views deployed on the program,into thinking that a genuinely wide spectrum of opinion is permitted. Moldering piles of ‘MacNeil/ Lehrer’ transcripts before me on my desk attest to the fact.

The show would be nothing without Robert (‘Robin’) MacNeil. Canadian, with a layer of high seriousness so thick it sticks to the screen, MacNeil anchors the show to tedium and yanks at the hawser everytime the craft shows any sign of floating off into uncharted waters. He seems to have learned – on the evidence of his recent memoir, The Right Place at the Right Time – the elements of his deadly craft in London, watching the BBC and writing for Reuters.

MacNeil is a man so self-righteously boring that he apparently had no qualms in setting down the truth about his disgraceful conduct in Dallas on November 22, 1963. MacNeil was there covering Kennedy’s visit for NBC. The shots rang out and he sprinted to the nearest telephone he could find. It so happens that he dashed, without knowing its significance, into the Texas Book Depository: ‘As I ran up the steps and through the door, a young man in shirt sleeves was coming out. In great agitation I asked him where there was a phone. He pointed inside to an open space where another man was talking on a phone situated next to a pillar and said, “Better ask him.” I ran inside. …’

Later, MacNeil writes, ‘I heard on television that a young man called Oswald, arrested for the shooting, worked at the Texas Book Depository and had left by the front door immediately afterward. Isn’t that strange, I told myself. He must have been leaving just about the time I was running in…’

Later still, William Manchester demonstrated that there was a 95 percent certainty that MacNeil had met Oswald. Any reporter, any human, with anything other than treacle in his veins, would naturally make much of the coincidence and divert children, acquaintances, and indeed a wider public, with interesting accounts of Oswald’s demeanor at this significant moment. Not MacNeil. With Pecksniffian virtuousness, he insists that the encounter was merely ‘possible,’ and that ‘it is titillating, but it doesn’t matter very much.’

Such is the aversion to storytelling, the sodden addiction to the mundane, that produced ‘MacNeil/ Lehrer.’ Like an Exocet missile, MacNeil can spot a cliche, a patch of ennui, and home in on it with dreadful speed. Witness his proclamation of political belief:

Instinctively, I find it more satisfying to belong with those people in all countries who put their trust in Man’s best quality, his rational intellect and its ability to recognize and solve problems. It is distressing that the recent course of American politics has caused that trust to be ridiculed or dismissed as some sort of soft-headedness, inappropriate to a virile nation confronting the dangerous world. It will be unfortunate if being a ‘liberal’ remains an embarrassment, if young Americans should begin to believe that conservatives are the only realists.

Each has its absurd extreme: liberalism tending to inspire foolish altruism and unwarranted optimism; conservatism leading to unbridled selfishness and paranoia. Taken in moderation, I prefer the liberal impulse: it is the impulse behind the great forces that have advanced mankind, like Christianity. I find it hard to believe that Jesus Christ was a political conservative, whatever views are espoused in his name today.

For all my instinctive liberalism, my experience of politics in many countries has not left me wedded to any particular political parties. Rather, I have found myself politically dining a la carte, on particular issues.

This is the mind-set behind ‘MacNeil/ Lehrer.’ ‘I have my own instinctive aversion to being snowed,’ he writes at another point. ‘The more I hear everyone telling me that some public person is wonderful, the more I ask myself, Can he really be all that wonderful? Conversely [for MacNeil there is always a ‘conversely’ poking its head round the door], I never believe anyone can be quite as consistently terrible as his reputation.’

Hitler? Attila the Hun? Pol Pot? Nixon? John D. Rockefeller? I’m afraid that’s all we have time for tonight. We’ve run out of time. Good night.

Alex Cockburn is a well known social and political critic, and a pioneer in the field of media analysis. His essays have appeared in The Nation, Harper’s, The Village Voice, The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, and many other publications in Britain, Europe and the Americas.

(First published in Counterpunch, 6.30.05)

 

 

 

FACT TO REMEMBER:
IF THE WESTERN MEDIA HAD ITS PRIORITIES IN ORDER AND ACTUALLY INFORMED, EDUCATED AND UPLIFTED THE MASSES INSTEAD OF SHILLING FOR A GLOBAL EMPIRE OF ENDLESS WARS, OUTRAGEOUS ECONOMIC INEQUALITY, AND DEEPENING DEVASTATION OF NATURE AND THE ANIMAL WORLD,  HORRORS LIKE THESE WOULD HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED MANY YEARS, PERHAPS DECADES AGO.  EVERY SINGLE DAY SOCIAL BACKWARDNESS COLLECTS ITS OWN INNUMERABLE VICTIMS. 

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VIEWPOINTS: Without Best, animal movement missing important voice

Jon Hochschartner

Steven Best: A prophet before his time?

Steven Best: A prophet before his time?

[dropcap]G[/dropcap]od, I miss Steven Best. Does anyone else in the animalist movement ever feel that way? A long-time, unapologetic voice for non-humans, Best has gone quiet after a few unimaginably difficult years embroiled in a bitter public spat with a former comrade, against whom he eventually was forced to take out a restraining order. Last year he released a phenomenal book, called “The Politics of Total Liberation” which as far as I can tell very few people read due to its pricing as an academic text. (I received a free copy and loved it, believing it was a masterful distillation of his work, but never held up my end of the bargain in reviewing it. Sorry, Palgrave-Macmillan!) Since then, his blog hasn’t been updated.

Like a lot of anti-speciesists about my age, I think I was profoundly influenced by Best. I came across his work in 2005 or 2006, during my first year college, when I was first diving into animalism. He was the first writer I found who sought to make connections between the non-human struggle and the broader left, citing folks ranging from Emma Goldman to Malcolm X. He was an intersectionalist, before the term became the watchword among animalists it is today, invoked with such meaningless frequency and hand-wringing sanctimony. He was my role model, representing everything a committed anti-speciesist should be. I ended up interviewing him in 2010. Waiting to make the phone call, I remember being awash with nerves, pacing back and forth, endlessly chain-smoking cigarettes.

The magnitude of the crimes committed by humans on animals, with total impunity, and the sheer arrogance of culturally-embedded speciesism, sometimes prompt sensitive people, in desperation, to embrace extreme positions. ——eds.

Now, please don’t misunderstand. I don’t agree with Best on everything. I didn’t then and I certainly don’t now. For instance, a big part of his work provides an ideological defense for underground groups such as the Animal Liberation Front. In recent years, while I continue to enjoy hearing of slaughterhouse arsons, I increasingly see such action as ineffective, as the infrastructure of animal exploitation can only truly be brought down through collective struggle. Further, these individualist attacks often represent a tremendous waste of human and financial resources, in the form of dedicated animalists sent to prison for decades and the scarce funds used to support them. In this particular respect, I now see Best as a relic from another era, when the left as a whole was on the retreat and the possibility of collective action for animals unthinkable. That’s not to necessarily say his stance was wrong at the time. But at the risk of sounding overly optimistic, political conditions have changed and continue to change in the right direction.

So again, I miss Best. Not because I defer to him. But because I think he’s an important voice in the animalist movement. Even when we disagree, I find his arguments worth hearing. If I was a non-human, I think I would want someone with his clarity and courage speaking for me. No doubt his silence is partly the result of the ordeal he has gone through in recent years. Having taken long breaks from the left and activism myself for a variety of reasons, I’d be the last person to pressure Best to return before he was ready. A couple of years ago, while in the midst of the aforementioned feud, he wrote a blog post about how soothing he found work in his garden. That’s how I like to picture him now: tending the vegetable beds outside his New Mexico ranch house, amongst his family of rescue cats, healing. I just hope when he is ready, he’ll come back to us.

Jon Hochschartner is a freelance writer residing in upstate New York. 

pale blue horiz

FACT TO REMEMBER:
IF THE WESTERN MEDIA HAD ITS PRIORITIES IN ORDER AND ACTUALLY INFORMED, EDUCATED AND UPLIFTED THE MASSES INSTEAD OF SHILLING FOR A GLOBAL EMPIRE OF ENDLESS WARS, OUTRAGEOUS ECONOMIC INEQUALITY, AND DEEPENING DEVASTATION OF NATURE AND THE ANIMAL WORLD,  HORRORS LIKE THESE WOULD HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED MANY YEARS, PERHAPS DECADES AGO.  EVERY SINGLE DAY SOCIAL BACKWARDNESS COLLECTS ITS OWN INNUMERABLE VICTIMS. 

pale blue horiz

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Get back at the lying, criminal mainstream media and its masters by reposting the truth about world events. If you like what you read on The Greanville Post help us extend its circulation by reposting this or any other article on a Facebook page or group page you belong to. Send a mail to Margo Stiles, letting her know what pages or sites you intend to cover.  We MUST rely on each other to get the word out! 

 

And remember: All captions and pullquotes are furnished by the editors, NOT the author(s). 

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