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Dominant Media's Selective Morality

By Paul Street at Apr 01, 2005

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Some of this blog's readers may know that I published a piece in Black Commentator last week under the title "Savage Morality: Selective Concern and Dominant Media in an Age of Empire and Inequality (see www.blackcommentator.org/131/131_think_savage_morality.html). The point of this essay was that United States media authorities make revealing class-, race-, and empire-selective choices in determining what should be on the table of Americans' moral concern. By the perverse moral calculus of dominant American media, I argued: * The potential development of a few nuclear weapons by an Arab state trumps Israel's already massive thermonuclear arsenal as a matter of public concern. * The death of 1500 U.S. soldier-occupiers in Iraq morally outweighs the demise of 100,000 occupied civilians in the same nation. * Bill Clinton's amorous misadventure with Monica Lewinsky was a terrible crime but his murderous missile and bomb attacks on the Sudan and Serbia were reasonable and appropriate. * Affirmative action in college admissions for historically oppressed people of color is a big concern but Legacy admissions for super-privileged whites (including the former drug offender who currently occupies the oval office) is a minor matter. * The occasional public racial bigotry of some white personalities is a source of considerable outrage (e.g., the Trent Lott fiasco of late 2002) but deeply entrenched racist social structures, institutions, and values are generally ignored. * The cost of suburban highway tolls to white commuters is a bigger issue than the enormous public expense and terrible social consequences of the nation's massive, racially disparate prison-industrial complex. * The murder of a powerful white federal judge's mother and husband is a huge public drama but the murders of thousands of poor blacks and Latinos are of slight concern. * The adulterous behavior of The Boeing Corporation's CEO is a hot topic but the murderous technology and heavily taxpayer-subsidized super-profits of that CEO's imperialist "defense" corporation is outside the spectrum of serious ethical inquiry. I just did a follow up piece titled "Terry Schiavo, 84,000 Black Men, and Dominant Media's Selective Morality" for the excellent radical newsletter Dissident Voice. This (too-) short essay ads another instructive contrast to the above short catalogue of dominant media's savagely selective morality: the death of Terry Schiavo versus recent reports showing that unequal health care contributes to more than 100,000 black Americans dying earlier than whites each year (read it at http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Apr05/Street0401.htm). This article also ads some comments on Lawerence Summers (his recent women in science comments versus his 1991 World Bank memo on the under-pollution of the Third World) and the Red Lake high school massacre versus Columbine. It contains some interesting research suggestions for any of you who might have access to Lexus-Nexus. By the way the first place I saw the phrase "dominant media" was somewhere in the prolific work of left educational writer cultural theorist Henry Giroux. It's such a better phrase than "mainstream media." After all, were Soviet state television and press "mainstream"?

Comment On This Blog Post  See All Comments (10)

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Re: Dominant Media's Selective Morality

By Cryofan, Cryofan at Apr 12, 2005 21:27 PM
You are playing right into the hands of the power elite, Paul, when you emphasize how Blacks have been screwed over by the healthcare extortion scheme that is America. Divide and conquer--they have been playing that game since before 1776. Better to concentrate on how it affects everyone....

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Re: Dominant Media's Selective Morality

By Organum, Baby at Apr 04, 2005 13:29 PM
The Conservative Rites seem to exclude slices of population from the growing framework of civilisation. This is not reviving the Federal State called USA. But it can revive a shrinking percentage of your citizens (financially).

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Re: Dominant Media's Selective Morality

By Organum, Baby at Apr 04, 2005 13:19 PM
It would not be smart of EU to deny the US its long tradition of Head of WB. They get the Monetary Fond dont they ? As to revival. I have not seen any attemps in USA. Or for that matter, the west as a whole. Nope. Same rethorics. Same strategies. Wich is no strategy in most cases. No revival.

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By Rocstar, Ubermench at Apr 03, 2005 06:47 AM
I keep looking for Paul's comment about the world bank in this article (ala the other posts) - nope! Just can't find it...

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Re: Dominant Media's Selective Morality

By Bauerly, Mtbrad at Apr 03, 2005 01:57 AM
Good point bwong, can the world bank get worse? Maybe, or maybe it will finaly piss of enough people for a reaction. I seem to be quite feisty today don't I? ;) The interesting thing about globalization is that it is dispersing the power to others, which is what is causeing the "muscle flexing" in iraq and other places by the US. If the periphery countries stoped producing for the US, our economy would fall apart faster than cheap walmart crap.

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Re: Dominant Media's Selective Morality

By Gammon101, Bwong at Apr 02, 2005 23:16 PM
But I thought the IMF and world bank are already institutions of the most rapacious neoliberals. Can wolfowitz be any worse? Does the nomination of Wolfowitz represent an internal power struggle of the capitalist elite("Old Europe" v.s the U.S), or does it represent something truly worse for the world? I am not being rhetorical. I don't know what the answers to my questions are. I am interested in finding out which way it is.

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Re: Dominant Media's Selective Morality

By Bauerly, Mtbrad at Apr 02, 2005 18:19 PM
Baby: While I agree that the USA is "loosing its grip", what we are seeing is an attempt at reviving it. The EU should have never allowed Wolfowitz to be confermed. There has never been anyone but a US citizen as head of the World Bank. That should be grounds enough for the EU to protest Wolfy. Control of the World Bank is a device for larger control. Even after Bush is gone, the neocons will be running the world through the World bank and UN (which we will see shortly).

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Re: Dominant Media's Selective Morality

By Organum, Baby at Apr 02, 2005 16:38 PM
mammal1003: After meeting EU wolfowitz publicly stated that the EU was largest single donor. This collides with the controling mechanisms in "TheGreatestNation" They are loosing the grip and can neither discuss nor solve it since ruling propaganda effects rulers as well.

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Re: Dominant Media's Selective Morality

By Mlipko, Mammal1003 at Apr 01, 2005 23:53 PM
I happen to live in the Philadelphia market, and was amazed that the dominant "Inquirer" had but a one paragraph blurb on page 4 regarding World Bank acceptance of the Wolfowitz nomination. One would think that a mainstream paper would run an Editorial or Commentary either for or against this action. Just goes to show that content, or lack thereof, is the main weapon that media uses to keep "the Great Beast" of the American population in line and on board. Also, I sumbit that we call this machine the "Propaganda Industry" that it truly is.

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Re: Dominant Media's Selective Morality

By Rocstar, Ubermench at Apr 01, 2005 21:48 PM
Paul, I think we should be much more descriptive when we name the, let's say, predominant media - when we speak of the news papers, propaganda press - television, televised tripe - radio, faux voice, etc. However, we should always keep in mind that these forms of media are just a mere support for world view warfare. The entire society, from cradle to grave is structured like a soft prison, a sort of mental tyranny of which Thomas Jefferson cried - "I have sworn on the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." This has become the art form of the ruling elite in the United States today - mental tyranny.

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