Qed

Climategate Scientists Cleared, But Media Slow To Report It

Rodney Tiffen writes on the last of three inquiries into the so-called Climategate emails however in his conclusion that the media created damage to popular support for action on carbon he fails to state the obvious question. Why?

Why did the mainstream media give so much credence and coverage to what was transparently a sensationalist stunt with the obvious purpose of derailing the Copenhagen summit?

A simple explanation may well be that the mainstream media, particularly the populist press were keen to reinforce their self importance in the minds of the public by “breaking” significant news. Since their reputation for accuracy is highly questionable anyway, truth was never really a consideration. They simply exploited the big story to sell their product.

While this simple and more conventional argument has some logic to it, there would seem to be a more sinister aspect to the source and motivation of some of the more outspoken mouthpieces for the denialist camp. Clearly they were politically motivated in their desire to undermine the science on climate change and furthermore they were enabled in that process by their position. The obvious objective was always to first undermine any consensus at Copenhagan with a second even more desirable objective to raise doubt in the minds of the public.

Have the reporters, journalists and editors responsible for spreading such a blatant piece of propaganda publicly admitted their wrong-doing and have they been summarily dismissed from their offices? No.

What’s more they wont be because they did exactly what they were supposed to do and did an excellent job of it. Strangely for an industry whose purpose is to manufacture consent, for once the industry decided to undermine popular belief in something it had helped create. It defies belief that such a course of action was merely the work of a handful of independent operators.

Climategate Scientists Cleared, But Media Slow To Report It.

the corporation

So I finally got around to watching this lengthy documentary which has been lying around my place for a few years gathering cobwebs. Which is a shame really because it deserves to be watched.

However Youtube is everyone’s friend and it looks like the whole thing is available in bits so knock yourselves out. Highlights for me were the bits on “The Investigators” Fox News story on BST and the story about IBM during WW2. Both stories highlight a key feature of the corporation, that is, its survival instinct dominates any concerns of morality. The allegation against IBM were covered extensively in the book IBM and the Holocaust and the Fox/Monsanto coincidence is also covered in the documentary Outfoxed.

The survival instinct of the corporations cannot be underestimated. As a human invention their existence has produced some of the worst features of capitalism stemming from the sole concern for making money. In other words, human beings invented these things and gave them only one thought, to make money. It stands in stark comparison with the articles in a country’s constitution which might have concerns for the public good, morality, religion, the environment, law and order and so on. And while nation states are constrained by territorial boundaries the corporations have risen to a point where they transcend the power of the state yet at their heart, corporations are still human inventions, we can bring them to heal.

Or can we? These corporations embody a very human characteristic, the will to live. That instinct exists in the hearts and minds of the people who sit in the boardrooms of these things and they understand only too well the possibility that their powerful position could be undermined by the will of the masses. So they will act to prevent any dissolution, just like Murdoch is acting to protect the interests of News.corpse for the battle lines are clear. A corporation that exists with no temporal limits, no certainty of death cannot reflect the true nature of humanity. The corporation fundamentally does not serve the people, it serves itself and its only objective is to make money and money is another guise for power. That’s why the Egytians built pyramids, so their kings could live forever apart from the world that gave them life. So the corporations will engage in activities that make them look like good corporate citizens because their biggest fear, their only fear, is that the people that created them might decide to kill them.

As sweet as Apple Pie

Two morsels on the todo list this morning as I watch the cockies fly past the window. Now that the Parallel Import Restrictions saga has been put to bed I guess writers and dead tree publishers will have to contend with something beyond the powers of governments to control, the march of the technology corporations.

Perennial favourite Apple is in the news for making a pile of loot and readying the ship for the next big thing, an Apple tablet/reader. Given the former, the latter seems like a sure thing especially when you consider that the runaway success of the iPhone will only last for so long because the problem with innovation and consumerism is that its ongoing. You can’t simply stop making new shit if that is what drives your business model and Apple are a company that makes new stuff.

Sure, as I look at my iPhone, I admit its smooth and functional; it does everything a phone should do as well as a few other things but I didn’t buy it, it was a present and I am not likely to buy another until this one dies. But the gloss of the new is a powerful force in the world and more evidence arrived the other day when someone left a copy of the new TechLiving magazine at my place. Produced by Dick Smith Electronics who in turn are owned by Woolworths, the magazine is kind of soft techno porn, the sort of wish fulfilment thing that parades style and unreality as something we should all aspire to and be prepared to pay for.

Now here’s a thought. The GFC was supposed to be signal the end of the neocons but it seems that the rise of corporations has continued virtually unchecked and that our future is now more than ever in their hands. Apple’s pile of cash and the eBook are just an example. It’s not something that can be debated, we can’t realistically pass laws that ban technology, nor is there any taste for passing laws that directly intervene in free market activity. All of our focus is forward, glued to the glossy while somewhere else the piles of eWaste accumulate and the holes in the ground get bigger.

So I just found these words from Abraham Lincoln

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. … corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.

— U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 (letter to Col. William F. Elkins) Ref: “The Lincoln Encyclopedia”, Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY)

Indeed. Go and enjoy the sun while it’s still free.