Democracy Now! e Air America

A Air America, a alternativa da esquerda aos talk shows da direita americana com duas semanas de vida, saiu do ar em Los Angeles e Chicago (veja Alternet). Pode até ser um complõ da direita, mas de qq modo as coisas da Air America são meio sem graça... Apesar de eu gostar da Garofalo e do Franken, os programas simplesmente não são engraçados e batem na direita com mesmo formato leviano usado pelos conservadores.

O contraste é inevitável com o sucesso da Pacifica Radio ( Democracy Now!) que completou 55 anos ontem. Ao invés de ficar batendo papo com celebridades liberais e criticar sem muita base a turma do baby Bush, a emissora faz jornalismo de qualidade.

Para entender a diferença, basta ler o artigo da Amy Goodman e do David Goodman na Alternet contando em primeira pessoa como foi o massacre no Cemitério de Santa Cruz, no Timor Leste (veja notas), em 12 de novembro de
1991. As tropas indonésias mataram 271 pessoas, feriram 278, 103 foram hospitalizados e desapareceram mais 270.

A group of soldiers surrounded me. They started to shake my microphone in my face as if to say, this is what we don't want. Then they slammed me to the ground with their rifle butts and started to kick me with their boots. I gasped for breath. Allan threw himself on top of me to protect me from further injury.

The soldiers wielded their M-16s like baseball bats. They slammed them against Allan's head until they fractured his skull. For a moment, Allan lay in the road in spasm, covered in blood, unable to move. Suddenly, about a dozen soldiers lined up like a firing squad. They put the guns to our heads and screamed, "Politik! Politik!" They were accusing us of being involved in politics, a crime clearly punishable by death. They also demanded, "Australia? Australia?"
...
Almost exactly sixteen years later (os indonésios executaram jornalistas australianos, a superpotencia da região, que foram cobrir a invasão do Timor), as Allan and I lay on the ground surrounded by Indonesian soldiers, we shouted, "No, we're from America!" They had stripped us of our possessions, but I still had my passport. I threw it at them. When I regained my breath, I said again, "We're from America! America!"

Finally, the soldiers lowered their guns from our heads. We think it was because we were from the same country their weapons were from. They would have to pay a price for killing us that they never had to pay for killing Timorese.

É esse tipo de coisa que é preciso fazer. Mostrar o que não é mostrado normalmente. Ouvir quem não tem voz...

Going to where the silence is. That is the responsibility of a journalist: giving a voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, and beaten down by the powerful. It is the best reason I know to carry our pens, cameras and microphones into our own communities and out to the wider world.

Para ser idealista é preciso tirar a bunda da cadeira e não simplesmente imitar a propaganda (no sentido em inglês) da direita.

BTW, a Alternet reproduziu tb um artigo do Michael Moore pedindo para a grande imprensa usar os nomes corretos das coisas:

First, can we stop the Orwellian language and start using the proper names for things? Those are not "contractors" in Iraq. They are not there to fix a roof or to pour concrete in a driveway. They are MERCENARIES and SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE. They are there for the money, and the money is very good if you live long enough to spend it.

Halliburton is not a "company" doing business in Iraq. It is a WAR PROFITEER, bilking millions from the pockets of average Americans. In past wars they would have been arrested – or worse.

The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow – and they will win. Get it, Mr. Bush? You closed down a friggin' weekly newspaper, you great giver of freedom and democracy! Then all hell broke loose. The paper only had 10,000 readers! Why are you smirking?