http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/09/2389/Mainstream Media Where Are You?
by Paul Buchheit
A group of teachers in Chicago recently started an initiative to inform college and high school students about critical global issues. The initiative deals with young people who have a wide range of academic skills, who are generally hard-working and eager to find a suitable career, and whose savvy about modern culture makes up for their lack of life experience. But they know almost nothing about their country’s relationship with the world. They know there’s a war going on, they’ve heard about genocide in Africa, they suspect that Iran is a threat to the United States. But ask them to provide some details and they return a blank stare.
It is understandable that today’s youth, with so many entertainment options and electronic distractions, and with the pursuit of good times high on their list of priorities, can’t be sufficiently aware of world issues. But they do read newspaper headlines and occasionally watch the news. They simply don’t get enough information from these sources. If they hear at all about controversial issues, the information is oversimplified, incomplete, and often one-sided.
They need to know that the U.S. is responsible for almost half of the world’s total military expenditures, that nearly half of the arms sales to developing countries (in 2005) came from the United States, and that 20 of the top 25 recipients of U.S. arms sales in the developing world were declared undemocratic or human rights abusers by the U.S. State Department’s own Human Rights Report.
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They need to know that “free trade” is often skewed in favor of wealthy countries. That we give more economic aid to our own multinational companies than foreign aid to poor countries. That U.S. tariffs on countries like Viet Nam and Bangladesh are 10 times higher than on European Union countries. That according to Christian Aid, trade liberalization in the past 20 years has cost sub-Saharan Africa more than $272 billion, a staggering sum that could have erased all its debts while paying for vaccination and school for every child. That the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the New Economics Foundation, and the United Nations Report on the World Social Situation 2005 all reported that free trade has not helped the world’s poor.
Is it unpatriotic to criticize the behavior of one’s own country? It depends on the meaning of patriotism. Socrates angered people by challenging them in public and exposing their ignorance. But he felt he was acting as a patriot by encouraging thoughtfulness over blind acceptance and celebration of government policies. In words attributed to him, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Like Socrates, Henry David Thoreau believed that citizens should tolerate nothing less from their government than the highest standards of behavior. He said, “Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform.” Martin Luther King talked about moving “beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience.”
But how do we know what’s true and what isn’t? Opinions derived from any one source may be inaccurate, or biased, or simply wrong. Our students in the Global Initiative are taught to research the issues, to seek multiple sources if there is any question about the truth. It can be hard work. Their job would be a lot easier if the newspapers and TV news shows would take on the big issues and make a realistic effort to provide balanced coverage.
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