Another day in paradise-- Steve Macek's Blog

2008-07-26T13:04:00.000-07:00

Keeping the World at Bay...

As anyone who has been keeping count knows, since 9/11, the Bush administration has barred dozens of prominent foreign nationals from entering the country on the specious grounds that they had some sort of tie to a vaguely defined "terrorism." The case of Tariq Ramadan-- an eminent European Muslim scholar who was prevented from entering the US to take a post at Notre Dame-- is perhaps the most famous. But there have been others: Adam Habib, a South African scholar and outspoken critic of the war in Iraq; Waskar Ari, a Bolivian expert on Bolivian indigeonous religious beliefs and activism; several Cuban scholars and on and on. Now it appears that peaceful, nonviolent, secular human rights activists who just happen to oppose U.S. imperialism's various client regimes are also being barred. Will it never end?

Homeland insecurity
Peter Tatchell guardian.co.uk, Wednesday July 2 2008

In another bizarre twist to Washington's often illegal, irrational "war on terror", peaceful, lawful human rights campaigners are now apparently being refused entry to the US – without any right of appeal.

Noordin Mengal, a British citizen and Baluch human rights defender, was detained and deported by US immigration when he arrived at Newark Liberty airport from Dubai last week. Read more here.

2008-05-15T19:24:00.000-07:00

Pentagon Used Ex-Military Experts as Megaphones for Propaganda

A few weeks ago the New York Times reported what those of us in the anti-war movement have long suspected: that many of those ubiquitous former generals who are forever appearing on TV news shows to talk about the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan have been carefully coached and cultivated by the Pentagon to echo the administrations' talking points and misinformation. This is of course a violation of longstanding laws prohibiting the military -- or any branch of government-- from engaging in domestic propaganda. Add the "military analyst program" to the large and growing dossier of treasonous offenses for which Bush, Cheney and co. may some day stand trial.

2008-04-07T11:54:00.000-07:00

I should have blogged about this long ago.

A group of former North Central College Broadcasting/Media Students-- many of whom took my first ever "Introduction to New Media" course-- have launched an exciting new site devoted to "music and culture". Check it out here.

Among other things, the site features reviews, a concert calender, interviews with up and coming bands, MP3s and a clever V-blog of album reviews (see below). Nice work guys!

2008-03-28T14:56:00.000-07:00

The $3 Trillion Mistake

This is old news but still deserving of comment.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz recently co-authored a book (with Linda Bilmes), The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict, which puts the real cost of the invasion and occupation of Iraq to the U.S. economy at roughly $ 3 trillion. They estimate that the war has cost the rest of the world another $ 3 trillion. And they claim that war will ultimately add another $2 trillion to our already enormous $5 trillion national debt. Who has profited from this expensive debacle? The defense and oil industries, the very industries who largely bankrolled the Bush-Cheney Presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2004. Coincidence? Hmmm.

Now, I'm usually not a fan of Nobel-Prize winning economists. The Nobel Prize in Economics was created later than the original 5 Nobel Awards (Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Peace) at the urging of and with funding from a group of Swedish bankers. Throughout its history, it has been used to ratify and legitimate what I would call "pro-capitalist," or what some heterodox economists aptly dub "autistic", classical and neoclassical economic dogma. Indeed, a Nobel Prize in Economics is often nothing more than license to perpetuate anti-worker lies and myths under the cover of scholarly respectability. Witness the case of Milton Friedman, who won the prize in 1976 at around the time he was acting as adviser to the bloodthirsty and criminal Pinochet junta in Chile. Usually when I hear "Nobel Laureate in Economics", I prepare myself for an onslaught of reactionary ideology dressed up in the language of "rational game theory" and buttressed by an arsenal of fudged statistics. So, the fact that someone like Stiglitz -- a rather mild-mannered and moderate critic of neoclassical economics-- is taking aim at the Bush administrations' expensive folly in Iraq is noteworthy. And, yes, welcome...Read more below

The $3 trillion war in Iraq

Only two winners have emerged from the conflict: oil companies and defence contractors...

http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/339461

2008-03-12T15:12:00.000-07:00

As we approach the 5th anniversary of the illegal, catastrophic and mind-numbingly cruel U.S. invasion of Iraq, it is important to recognize what is really driving American imperialism and militarism: corporate greed, inter-imperialist rivalry and what Eisenhower famously called the military-industrial complex.It's also important to recognize that that U.S. has been an imperialist power almost since its inception and became the world's major imperialist power in the aftermath of WWII (although the USSR certainly was a close second). The American seizure of Iraq was just the latest in a very long line of "intervensions" that have overthrown governments-- often popularly elected governments-- around the globe. This is a point that is that is underscored by this clever little video:

2008-02-27T10:43:00.001-08:00

Here's a fine video from media reform group Free Press. Enjoy.

2007-07-31T08:26:00.000-07:00

Another expose of FOX NEWS...Of course, criticizing FOX is like shooting fat, disabled ducks in a barrel. But, still, FOX's stupid attack on blogs and bloggers-- who as a group tend to be libertarians, New (or Third Way) Democrats and independent centrists, not socialists or extreme leftists-- is absolutely misinformed. If only DAILY KOS and the other blogs being routinely attacked by O'Reilly were really calling for revolutionary change.

2007-06-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

More Bad News: The Demise of Punk Planet
The tiny club of independent, progressive/radical publications based here in Chicago is about to shrink yet again. I just got word that Punk Planet-- a zine that for 13 years combined service to the punk subculture with coverage of news and commentary about feminism, labor, sexual politics, race relations, the environment and a host of other issues--is going to close its doors. Here's a choice snippet from PP founder and editor Dan Sinker's letter to subscribers:

As much as it breaks our hearts to write these words, the final issue
of Punk Planet is in the post, possibly heading toward you right now.
Over the last 80 issues and 13 years, we've covered every aspect of
the financially independent, emotionally autonomous, free culture we
refer to as "the underground." In that time we've sounded many alarms
from our editorial offices: about threats of co-optation, big-media
emulation, and unseen corporate sponsorship. We've also done
everything in our power to create a support network for independent
media, experiment with revenue streams, and correct the distribution
issues that have increasingly plagued independent magazines. But now
we've come to the impossible decision to stop printing, having
sounded all the alarms and reenvisioned all the systems we can.
Benefit shows are no longer enough to make up for bad distribution
deals, disappearing advertisers, and a decreasing audience of
subscribers.

As to the latter two points, we could blame the Internet. It makes
editorial content—and bands—easy to find, for free. (We're sure our
fellow indie labels, those still standing, can attest to the
difficulties created in the last few years). We can blame educational
and media systems that value magazines focused on consumerism over
engaged dissent. And we can blame the popular but mistaken belief
that punk died several years ago.

But it is also true that great things end, and the best things end
far too quickly.

As to bad distribution deals, we must acknowledge that the financial
hit we took in October of 2005, when our newsstand distributor
announced that it was in dire straits, was worse than we originally
thought. As the dust began to clear from their January bankruptcy
announcement, we began to realize that the magazine was left in
significantly worse shape, distribution-wise, than they let on.

Add to that the stagnation that the independent record world is
suffering under and the effect that has had on our ad sales, not to
mention the loss of independent bookstores with a vested interest in
selling our publication, and it all adds up to a desperate situation.
This has been made far worse by the exhaustion felt from a year and a
half of fighting our own distributor. It was a situation that didn't
have an exit strategy other then, well, exiting.

Sinker goes on to explain that the PP website and book publishing imprint will continue on. Still, the world will be a vastly less interesting place without the excellent print magazine; it could always be counted on for thoughtful columns, eye opening feature articles, interviews with cutting edge bands, artists and activists, and sharp tongued reviews of music, books and media of all kinds. It sure beat the hell out of the corporate rock magazines like Rolling Stone and Spin. I'll miss it...

2007-06-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

An important announcement from...

National Project in Defense of Dissent
and Critical Thinking in Academia

Opposition Mounts as University of Colorado President
Calls for Ward Churchill to be Dismissed

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:Reggie Dylan: (626) 319-1730
Matthew Abraham: (773) 682-9322
Email: criticalxthinking@yahoo.com
Website: www.defendcriticalthinking.org

In a letter to the Board of Regents, University of Colorado President Hank
Brown has called for the dismissal of tenured Ethnic Studies Professor
Ward Churchill. His recommendation goes beyond that
of the faculty investigative committee that examined
charges of research misconduct; and of the faculty
Privilege and Tenure (P&T) committee that recently
heard Churchill’s appeal. Gov. Bill Ritter of Colorado
joined Brown in calling for the firing of Churchill,
as his predecessor Bill Owens did two years earlier.
The Board of Regents is expected to make a final
decision in this case at a public hearing some time in
July.
A growing number of scholars see CU’s
investigation of Churchill’s scholarship as completely
illegitimate and a dangerous precedent threatening
dissent and critical thinking in the universities.
The CU - Boulder chapter of the American Association
of University Professors (AAUP) has written that "we
believe that the investigation now is widely perceived
to be a pretext for firing Churchill when the real
reason for dismissal is his politics." The
investigation was launched in the wake of controversy
provoked by an essay Churchill wrote after 9/11.
Churchill noted in response to Brown’s
letter that "the University had received no formal or
written complaints about my scholarship when it
initiated this ‘investigation.’ All of the
allegations investigated were either solicited or
brought directly by University administrators." He
also noted that "The Investigative Committee charged
with conducting a ‘fact-finding, nonadversarial’
investigation was chaired by law professor Mimi
Wesson, who - in February 2005 - had compared me to
'charismatic male celebrity wrongdoers' like O.J.
Simpson, Michael Jackson and Bill Clinton, and had
already come up with the faulty 'traffic stop' analogy
the Committee used to justify its conclusions." The
committee included no American Indians or experts in
American Indian Studies, and scholars that had used
Churchill's research in their own work were removed
from the committee.
The report of the committee hearing
Churchill’s appeal found that Churchill proved by a
"preponderance of the evidence" that "but for" his
exercise of his protected first amendment rights, the
subsequent investigation of his scholarship would
never have been initiated.
In a recent open letter to colleagues
around the country Dr. Margaret LeCompte, President of
the Boulder AAUP Chapter, wrote: "What has happened at
the University of Colorado makes a mockery of both due
process and academic freedom protections, AND what
faculty believe. It is a cruel violation of the
delicate balance between faculty rights and
administrative responsibilities… The entire process
was a sham---imitating the form, but not the intent,
of due process and fair, objective, scholarly
investigation."
Two faculty groups that have examined the
report of the investigative committee claim that the
report is seriously flawed. In an unprecedented
action, both have now filed formal charges of academic
misconduct against the members of the faculty
committee. The most recent group to do so, made up of
principally Indigenous scholars from around the
country and Canada, documented "many instances of
fraud, fabrication, plagiarism and/or serious
deviation from accepted scholarly practices" which
"demonstrate a consistent pattern of deliberate
misrepresentation intended to discredit Professor
Churchill’s larger body of scholarship." Eric
Cheyfitz, Ernest I. White Professor of American
Studies and Humane Letters at Cornell University, has
found "the Report turns what is a debate about
controversial issues of identity and genocide in
Indian studies into an indictment of one position in
that debate."
The implications of this case go beyond
the threat to Churchill's reputation and career, as
serious as those are. The attack on Churchill is seen
by many in academia as part of a much broader attack
on academic freedom and critical thinking and dissent.
Dr. LeCompte notes, "It is not limited to Colorado. In
fact, it is a test case by the US right wing to
emasculate faculty rights in US universities."
This is illustrated by the recent denial of tenure
for DePaul University political scientist Norman
Finkelstein. Though he was supported by his
department, Finkelstein was denied tenure after an
intense campaign spearheaded by Harvard Law School's
Alan M. Dershowitz, who called Finkelstein "worse than
Churchill." Many DePaul faculty and others were
alarmed at Dershowitz’s heavy-handed tactics and saw
them as an attempt to punish one side of a
controversial debate. Finkelstein said that DePaul’s
decision was based on "transparently political
grounds" and was an "egregious violation" of academic
freedom.
Churchill noted in his response to Brown’s
letter that "President Brown, his new VP Michael
Poliakoff, and Regent Tom Lucero, like Bill Owens, are
key players in Lynne Cheney’s American Council of
Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). ACTA and similar
neoconservative groups have received generous funding
[from] Castle Rock (Coors), Scaife, Bradley and Olin
foundations to eliminate Ethnic, Gender and Peace
Studies Programs and to purge higher education of
those who think critically, challenge historical
orthodoxy, or otherwise threaten the status quo."
Opposition to this impending firing has
been increasing nationally, as more and more academics
recognize the stakes involved in the Churchill case.
An open letter signed by numerous prominent scholars,
including Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Derrick Bell and
Immanuel Wallerstein was published in the New York
Review of Books in April. Scores of others have
written letters of support, and there was a recent
Emergency National Forum in Boulder of academics and
supporters. The Society of American Law Teachers has
written a letter arguing against a firing.
Richard Falk, visiting Distinguished
Professor at University of California, Santa Barbara
recently wrote: "All of us who value academic freedom
should now stand in full solidarity with Ward
Churchill. The outcome of his case at the University
of Colorado is the best litmus test we have to tell
whether the right-wing’s assaults on learning and
liberty will stifle campus life in this country. Never
in my lifetime have we in America more needed the sort
of vigorous debate and creative controversy that Ward
Churchill's distinguished career epitomizes. We all
stand to lose if his principled defense fails."
# # #
Signed:
Matthew Abraham - Department of English, De Paul
University.
William Ayers - Distinguished Professor of Education
and Senior University Scholar, University of Illinois
at Chicago.
Derrick A Bell - Visiting Professor of Constitutional
Law, New York University School of Law.
Timothy Brennan - Departments of English and Cultural
Studies & Comparative Literature, University of
Minnesota.
Renate Bridenthal - Emerita Professor of History,
Brooklyn College, The City University of New York.
Bob Buzzanco - Department of History, University of
Houston.
Dana Cloud - Associate Professor of Communication
Studies at the University of Texas (Austin).
Drucilla Cornell - Professor in the Departments of Law
and Political Science at Rutgers University.
Sandi E Cooper - Professor of History, College of
Staten Island and the Graduate School, The City
University of New York.
Richard Delgado - University Distinguished Professor
of Law and Derrick Bell Fellow, University of
Pittsburgh.
Richard A Falk - Albert G. Milbank Professor of
International Law and Practice at Princeton
University; Visiting Distinguished Professor (since
2002), Global Studies, University of California, Santa
Barbara.
Seth Kahn - Assistant Professor of English, West
Chester University of PA.
Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies,
Middle East Institute, Columbia University.
Vinay Lal - Department of History, University of
California, Los Angeles.
Gary Leupp - Professor of History at Tufts University,
and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion.
Henry Silverman - Professor and Chairperson Emeritus,
Department of History, Michigan State University.
Immanuel Wallerstein - Senior Research Scholar, Yale
University.
Tim Wise - Author of "White Like Me: Reflections on
Race from a Privileged Son," and "Affirmative Action:
Racial Preference in Black and White."

2007-06-12T20:13:00.000-07:00

Depaul Caves in to Neo-Con Pressure and Denies Norman Finkelstein Tenure
This past Friday Norman Finkelstein-- a leading critic of the systematic U.S. and Israeli oppression of the Palestinians and a careful analyst of the way the Holocaust has been used by apologists to justify Israeli disregard for international law -- was denied tenure by DePaul University. This despite the fact that he enjoyed excellent teaching evaluations, is a prominent public intellectual with several books to his credit and had the full backing of his department. Yet his tenure bid was blocked first by his dean and then by his president. Why? As president Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider put it in his letter to Finkelstein:

reviewers at all levels, both for and against tenure, commented upon your ad hominem attacks on scholars with whom you disagree... In the opinion of those opposing tenure, your unprofessional personal attacks divert the conversation away from consideration of ideas, and polarize and simplify conversations that deserve layered and subtle consideration. As such, they believe your work not only shifts toward advocacy and away from scholarship, but also fails to meet the most basic standards governing scholarship discourse within the academic community.

A little later in the letter Holtschneider says that he cannot "in good faith conclude that you honor your obligations to 'respect and defend the free inquiry of associates,' 'show due respect for the opinions of others,' and 'strive to be objective in their professional judgment of colleagues.'"

Having only read one of Finkelstein's older books (The Holocaust Industry) and some of his popular articles, I can't say for certain that this is a total misrepresentation of his work but the stuff of his I have read not only exceeds "basic standards governing scholarship" but is much more politically relevant, more insightful, and better written than most of the dreck cranked out by legions of other, perhaps more polite, professors in history and political science. True, Finkelstein has been engaged in an ongoing feud with the ever obstreperous Allen Dershowitz, Harvard law professor and well known apologist for Israeli militarism. But in this particular spat, it has been Dershowitz who has failed to respect the free inquiry of others and whose behavior has consistently failed to meet the standards of the academic community: instead of attempting to refute Finkelstein's criticisms of his views on Israel, he actually lobbied Governor of California Arnold Schwartzenegger in an effort to prevent the University of California Press from publishing them.

Yet even if the charges Holtschneider makes about Finkelstein are true, is that sufficient grounds for silencing a unique and courageous voice who even the president himself admits is "provocative, challenging and intellectually interesting?" One wonders whether or not any of the more famous conservative/reactionary intellectuals of past few years would be able to pass muster if the DePaul standard were uniformly enforced throughout academia. Former Secretary of Education William Bennett, cultural critic Allan Bloom, historian Paul Johnson -- to name only three such right-of-center authors -- have made entire careers out of spewing hateful polarizing rhetoric and launching vicious personal attacks; hell, Johnson's Intellectuals is nothing but one long, gossip-filled ad hominem assault on every left-wing intellectual from Rousseau to Brecht. How much did Leo Strauss-- advocate of using noble lies to manipulate the allegedly witless masses-- "respect the opinion of others"? And has Pepperdine University's Daniel Pipes-- founder of the neo-McCarthyite outfit Campus Watch-- ever once acted to "defend the free inquiry" of left-wing opponents of U.S. foreign policy?

The standard Holtschneider invokes in his letter is ultimately so malleable as to be virtually useless in practice. The truth is that people whose views are on the receiving end of even the most rigorously argued, clearly delineated and factually based criticisms will inevitably read them as "personal attacks" (even when they are framed explicitly as "considerations of ideas"); this is doubly true if the people in question happen to be right-wing ideological hotheads like the Neo-Con crowd.

But, of course, the real reason Finkelstein got the ax had absolutely nothing to do with the "tone" of his work or his ad hominem attacks on Dershowitz or anyone else; rather, it had to do with the subversive ideas that he advocated. Since 9/11, criticism of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East-- and in particular, criticism of U.S. support of Israel-- has become the third rail of academia in this country. Touch it and your life in higher education may come to a sudden end. That is the clear message implicit in the Finkelstein tenure decision, in the firing of Ward Churchill at Colorado, in the carefully orchestrated public fervor over allegations about anti-Israeli bias at Columbia, and in the countless efforts made by college administrators and reactionary pundits like David Horowitz to punish faculty for speaking out against the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is a very dark day for academic freedom.

2007-06-06T21:28:00.000-07:00

We the People..Don't Want No War.

2007-06-06T20:34:00.000-07:00

Meen Erhabe/Who's the terrorist?
Interesting rap video that raises a vitally important question about Israeli treatment of Palestinians and the double standard involved in the way we in the West discuss "terrorism"...

2007-05-16T20:18:00.000-07:00

Burn in Hell, Jerry Falwell, Burn in Hell
If there is a Hell, Jerry Falwell's stunted, blackened, hate-filled little soul is at this moment almost certainly smoldering away in its deepest, hottest pit. How could a just God possibly spare a man who was an unapologetic segregationist (until the political winds started to shift), who supported the apartheid regime in South Africa, who gave his blessing to one U.S.-backed imperialist bloodbath after another, who callously applauded as the government slashed funding for the poor and the homeless, who saw the 9/11 attacks as divine retribution for "sins" committed by secular groups like the ACLU and People for the American way, who equated feminism with witchcraft, whose homophobic tirades (at least implicitly) legitimized hatred of and violence towards gays and lesbians, and who rarely missed an opportunity to spew demagogic misinformation about everything from children's TV characters to global warming in the national media? Unfortunately, as an atheist who is skeptical of the whole notion of an "afterlife," I strongly suspect that Falwell in death has evaded any sort of final reckoning for all the lives he destroyed in the course of his mean-spirited sanctimonious career. He now sleeps the blissful, eternal sleep of nonexistence. We, sadly, have to live with the legacy of evil he has left behind.

2007-04-18T13:10:00.000-07:00

Here's to the State of Missouri...*
According to Free Exchange on Campus, on April 12, "the Missouri House passed HB 213, the ACTA-inspired bill that mandates annual reporting to the coordinating board of higher education on issues of 'intellectual diversity' including protecting the viewpoint that 'the Bible is inerrant.' Rep. Jane Cunningham, the sponsor of the bill, wants the good folks of Missouri to believe this is based on the views of students because she has an individual case that she misrepresents as a systemic problem."

Every academic in the country ought to write a nasty letter to the speaker of the Missouri House and to every major newspaper in the the Show Me state protesting this nonsense. And we should be vigilant about this bill becoming a template for other states around the country. Among other things, the act opens the door to the teaching of so-called "intelligent design" as science and legitimates "monitoring" of the content of university classes. Of course, those of us on the socialist left could perhaps use the mandate for "intellectual diversity" in this legislation to protest the pro-business propaganda that often passes for scholarship and teaching in economics and business departments (where many faculty treat, not the Bible, but the equally loony pronouncements of Milton Friedman as "inerrant").

[ * Phil Ochs, at the height of the civil rights struggle in the south, penned a delightfully pointed little ditty called "Here's to the State of Mississippi" skewering that state for clinging to its racist, segregationist policies. The title of this post is an allusion to that song. Below is a choice snippet from Ochs' lyrics:

And here's to the schools of Mississippi
Where they're teaching all the children that they don't have to care
All the rudiments of hatred are present everywhere
And every single classroom is a factory of despair
There's nobody learning such a foreign word as fair
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of]

2007-04-16T19:41:00.000-07:00

The Death Knell of the Little Magazine?
Bob McChesney sent out an urgent letter earlier today alerting media reform activists and media studies scholars alike to the U.S. Post Office's impending rate hike and what it will do to "little magazines" like In These Times, The Nation, Monthly Review, Z Magazine and, for that matter, right wing publications like The National Review.

Here's some of the more important bits:

The U.S. Post Office is in the process of implementing a radical reformulation of its rates for magazines, such that smaller periodicals will be hit with a much much larger increase than the largest magazines.

Because the Post Office is a monopoly, and because magazines must use it, the postal rates always have been skewed to make it cheaper for smaller publications to get launched and to survive. The whole idea has been to use the postal rates to keep publishing as competitive and wide open as possible. This bedrock principle was put in place by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. They considered it mandatory to create the press system, the Fourth Estate necessary for self-government.

It was postal policy that converted the free press clause in the First Amendment from an abstract principle into a living breathing reality for Americans. And it has served that role throughout our history.

What the Post Office is now proposing goes directly against 215 years of postal policy. The Post Office is in the process of implementing a radical reformulation of its mailing rates for magazines. Under the plan, smaller periodicals will be hit with a much larger increase than the big magazines, as much as 30 percent. Some of the largest circulation magazines will face hikes of less than 10 percent.

The new rates, which go into effect on July 15, were developed with no public involvement or congressional oversight, and the increased costs could damage hundreds, even thousands, of smaller publications, possibly putting many out of business. This includes nearly every political journal in the nation. These are the magazines that often provide the most original journalism and analysis. These are the magazines that provide much of the content on Common Dreams. We desperately need them.

What the Post Office is planning to do now, in the dark of night, is implement a rate structure that gives the best prices to the biggest publishers, hence letting them lock in their market position and lessen the threat of any new competition. The new rates could make it almost impossible to launch a new magazine, unless it is spawned by a huge conglomerate.

Not surprisingly, the new scheme was drafted by Time Warner, the largest magazine publisher in the nation. All evidence available suggests the bureaucrats responsible have never considered the implications of their draconian reforms for small and independent publishers, or for citizens who depend upon a free press.

The corruption and sleaziness of this process is difficult to exaggerate. As one lawyer who works for a large magazine publisher admits, “It takes a publishing company several hundred thousand dollars to even participate in these rate cases. Some large corporations spend millions to influence these rates.” Little guys, and the general public who depend upon these magazines, are not at the table when the deal is being made.

The genius of the postal rate structure over the past 215 years was that it did not favor a particular viewpoint; it simply made it easier for smaller magazines to be launched and to survive. That is why the publications opposing the secretive Post Office rate hikes cross the political spectrum. This is not a left-wing issue or a right-wing issue, it is a democracy issue. And it is about having competitive media markets that benefit all Americans. This reform will have disastrous effects for all small and mid-sized publications, be they on politics, music, sports or gardening.

This process was conducted with such little publicity and pitched only at the dominant players that we only learned about it a few weeks ago and it is very late in the game. But there is something you can do. Please go to www.stoppostalratehikes.com and sign the letter to the Postal Board protesting the new rate system and demanding a congressional hearing before any radical changes are made. The deadline for comments is April 23

I want to reiterate Bob's call to action here. The disappearance of "little magazines" would be a huge blow to the left because-- in the absence of strong left political parties and militant unions--they are among the few institutions that give the left in the U.S. a national identity. And without them, I'd be forced to read Newsweek, Time, the New Republic, U.S. News and World Report, Foreign Policy and other such pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist, pop-culture-obsessed dreck. Please save me from this mind-numbing fate. Log onto www.stoppostalratehikes.com and make your voice heard....

2007-03-14T13:57:00.000-07:00

Check this out. Powerful stuff....

2007-02-19T19:18:00.000-08:00

On November 22nd 1987, someone hacked into the signals of Chicago TV stations WGN and WTTW and used the hijacked airwaves to broadcast a short piece of absurdist theater featuring a performer in an oversized Max Headroom mask. The people responsible for this bizarre little incident were never caught, despite the best efforts of the FBI and the FCC.

You can watch the video here
And you can read more about this strange episode in Chicago's media history here.

2007-02-07T21:03:00.002-08:00

Here's the latest stinking heap of bad news about the Bush administration's illegal and increasingly savage occupation of Iraq. So far this bloody misadventure has claimed the lives of over 150,000 Iraqi civilians (and 3,000 American GIs), caused countless more serious injuries and, according to a recent UN report, created some 3.7 million Iraqi refugees. The price tag for all this senseless mayhem? In the neighborhood of $ 2 trillion.

It is worth remembering that back in 2002, on the eve of the invasion, White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsey was fired for predicting that an Iraq war would cost between $100 billion and $200 billion.

For more on the true cost of the war, read on...

Iraq war could cost US over $2 trillion, says Nobel prize-winning
economist
Jamie Wilson in Washington
Saturday January 7, 2006
The Guardian

The real cost to the US of the Iraq war is likely to be between $1
trillion and $2 trillion (£1.1 trillion), up to 10 times more than
previously thought, according to a report written by a Nobel
prize-winning economist and a Harvard budget expert.

The study, which expanded on traditional estimates by including such
costs as lifetime disability and healthcare for troops injured in the
conflict as well as the impact on the American economy, concluded that
the US government is continuing to underestimate the cost of the war.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1681119,00.html

2006-12-14T14:18:00.001-08:00

More than a year ago lefty webzine Third Coast Press -- along with several members of Chicago Media Action and the local peace and justice movement-- challenged the licenses of every TV station in the Chicago market. Their petition to the FCC cited the stations' failure to adequately cover the debate over the war in Iraq and their chronic lack of attention to the city's African American, Latino and working class residents. Today, the FCC finally did what we always predicted they would do: they rejected the TCP petition. Indeed, those of us in the media reform/media democracy movement would have been shocked had that corrupt and venal agency actually done the right thing and launched further inquiries into TCP's complaints.

But this is not the end of this issue. Far from it. If the FCC had accepted the TCP petition, they would have had to hold a public hearing -- in Chicago-- about the stations' performance and their service to the public interest . Well, I can tell you that plans are already afoot to hold a public hearing, or perhaps even a series of public hearings, without the sanction of Bush's FCC. Chicago's TV broadcasters will not be able to escape public, democratic accountability so easily....

FCC Rejects Call for Chicago Stations' License Denial

By Ira Teinowitz

The Federal Communications Commission today rejected Third Coast Press' attempt to halt the license renewal of all 18 Chicago market TV stations, saying the progressive newspaper didn't prove its charge that the stations have been "systematically negligent" in serving the public service.
Read the whole story here: http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=11228

2006-10-24T13:15:00.000-07:00

Urban Communication Foundation

Press Release

23 October 2006

The Urban Communication Foundation announces the recipients of

the 2006 Jane Jacobs Publication Award.

First Prize: Urban Nightmares: The Media and the Moral Panic over the City by Steve Macek (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006).

The University of Minnesota describes Urban Nightmares:

For the past twenty-five years, American culture has been marked by an almost palpable sense of anxiety about the nation's inner cities. Urban America has been consistently depicted as a site of moral decay and uncontrollable violence, held in stark contrast to the allegedly moral and orderly suburbs and exurbs.

In Urban Nightmares, Steve Macek documents the scope of these alarmist representations of the city, examines the ideologies that informed them, and exposes the interests they ultimately served. From exploring the conservative analysis of the urban poverty, joblessness, and crime that became entrenched during the post-Vietnam War era to how Hollywood filmmakers, advertisers, and journalists validate the right-wing discourse on the urban crisis, popularizing its vocabulary, Macek takes a hard-hitting look at the role of right-wing ideologues and the mass media in demonizing urban America.

The UCF Jane Jacobs Awards Committee in announcing its choice noted:

Steve Macek weaves a range of rich examples (from government reports to popular film to newspaper accounts) in an effort to show how public opinions have been formed about the inner city and the people who live there. The book challenges our preconceived notions of urban life and challenges us to re-think how we represent others and how we accept and/or reject representations put forth by public officials and mass media. The book is an outstanding representation of urban communication scholarship.

This recognition carries with it a $1500 award that will be presented at the Urban Communication Foundation reception at the National Communication Associations’ Annual meeting in San Antonio on Thursday, November 16 at 6:30 p.m.

Second Prize: More Philadelphia Murals and the Stories They Tell by Jane Golden, Robin Rice, and Natalie Pompilio. With Photographs by David Graham and Jack Ramsdale (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006). In their description of this volume Temple University Press said

More Philadelphia Murals and the Stories They Tell continues the remarkable
story of an unlikely artistic collaboration that began as part of
Philadelphia's Anti-Graffiti Network. In June 1984, Jane Golden, a young
muralist headed up a project that was originally planned as a six-week youth
program in the fledgling Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network. This small
exercise in fighting graffiti grew into the Philadelphia Murals Arts Program
(MAP), one of the most vibrant public art projects in the United States. Two
decades later, MAP is now partnering with the criminal justice system, the
Department of Human Services, and the Philadelphia School District to work
with students in public schools who have truancy issues or criminal records.
This collaboration has helped bolster the ways in which public art helps
transform lives-one of the goals of MAP

The UCF Jane Jacobs Awards Committee in citing this work stated:

Philadelphia Murals: More Philadelphia Mural and the Stories They Tell describes and shows how art and community building can be interconnected. The murals discussed in this book and presented through beautiful photographs are representations of efforts made by artists and everyday people to communicate pride and joy, hopes and fears, and to protest injustice in a fashion that simultaneously reflects on-going public conversations and helps shape those conversations. The author's discussion and description of the Philadelphia murals foregrounds the mural as a communal communicative artifact.

This recognition is accompanied by a monetary award of $500 and will be presented at the Urban Communication Foundation reception on Thursday, November 16 at the National Communication Association’s annual meeting in San Antonio at 6:30 p.m.

6 Fourth Road

Great Neck, New York 11021-1506

www.urbancommunicationfoundation.com

Tel: 516.466.0136 Fax: 516.466.1782

Mobile: 516.567.9220 e-mail: listra@optonline.net

2006-10-22T16:02:00.000-07:00

“Black Writing” and “Urban Nightmares” authors to hold book-signing

NAPERVILLE, Ill. (Oct. 18, 2006) — North Central faculty authors and Naperville residents, Richard Guzman, professor of English, and Steve Macek, assistant professor of speech communication, will hold a joint book talk and signing on Thursday, Nov. 2, at 7 p.m. The public is invited to attend this free event at Barnes and Noble Booksellers, 47 E. Chicago Ave., where the authors will read excerpts, followed by a discussion and signing.

Guzman will discuss his newest book, “Black Writing from Chicago: In the World, Not of It?” The book combines poems, stories, memoirs, analysis, newspaper writing and radio drama, taking readers on a fascinating literary journey through Chicago’s rich cultural history. He collected the literature of more than 60 Black authors representing the 19th century through current day. “[It’s] a book of great importance and a sheer delight to read,” says Carolyn Rodgers, a poet and National Book Award nominee.

Macek’s “Urban Nightmares: The Media, the Right and the Moral Panic Over the City” explores alarmist representations of the inner city and the urban poor created by the media, intellectuals and mainstream politicians. He analyzes Hollywood film, advertisements and television news in an attempt to find the sources of the negative perceptions of urban areas. One reviewer called the book’s approach “. . . a refreshing change of pace . . . in our current political environment.”

In addition, on Saturday, Oct. 21, Macek will be speaking about his book at the Wisconsin Book Festival in Madison, Wis. For more information: http://www.wisconsinbookfestival.org/presenters/presenters.php

Guzman may be reached at rrguzman@noctrl.edu or 630-637-5280 and Macek may be reached at shmacek@noctrl.edu or 630-637-5369.

2006-08-24T20:12:00.000-07:00

Ok. So it has been a good two or even three months since I've posted anything to this blog. And I've got lots and lots of issues I want to sound off about when I manage to find the time (the Kevin Barrett episode and the future of academic freedom, for one). For the time being, though, I just want to point out that a number of media policy battles that will have a profound impact on the future shape of the communication landscape have been heating up this August and, though the forces of democracy and the common good stand a decent chance of winning in each case, disaster is still not out of the question.

First of all, there is the on-going battle to insert some sort of protection for the principal of Internet "network neutrality" into the omnibus telecommunications legislation that has passed the House and is now under consideration in the Senate. As Mitchell Szczepanczyk and I detail in an op-ed we wrote for the Illinois Editorial Forum (that was published initially in La Raza), if the big telecomm companies (Comcast, ATT, etc.) get their way, they'll be allowed to grant preferential treatment to their own web-based services (streaming video, long distance telephony, etc.) and to those customers willing to pay for the privledge and will be more or less allowed to block or stifle their competitors.

Second, the same bill that is poised to destroy the Internet will also do immesurable damage to cable access TV (which is the one place on TV that most people can have a chance to see truly radical programming, like "Labor Beat" or the nationally syndicated "Democracy Now"). Essentially, it will reduse the funding base for cable access stations AND limit their future growth by fixing the number of channels set allocated for public access at its current (l980s, pre-digital) levels. Mitchell Szczepanczyk and I have written about this in yet another op-ed syndicated by the Illinois Editorial Forum; this one was published first in the Rock River Times.

Finally, the FCC has at long decided to revist its broadcast ownership rules for the first time since a groundswell of opposition forced it to back off of its proposed deregulation back in 2003. As Scott Sanders details in his July 24th post on the Chicago Media Action website:

Just a few hours ago, the 3-2 Republican-dominated Federal Communications Commission released its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on broadcast ownership and broadcast/newspaper cross-ownership. At last, here is the required followup to the broadly rejected 2003 attempt under the agency's former chair Michael Powell (son of Colin) to eliminate virtually all remaining broadcast ownership rules. Those proposed rule changes were ultimately discarded by the courts and the Senate too. According to Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein's mostly dissenting response, we may be heading in the direction of another fiasco similar to the one in 2003...

The public has until Friday September 22nd to file comments with the FCC.

In any case, I strongly encourage everyone out there in the blogosphere to weigh in on each of these issues. The most important thing people can do about net neutrality and cable access at this point is contact their U.S. Senators and demand they take a stand in favor of a democratic media system by protecting current levels of funding for cable access TV and passing legislation that ensures a "neutral" internet free of corporate censorship and control. And in the case of media ownership regulations, it is vital not only to file comments with the FCC but to prepare for protests and other forms of popular pressure in the likely even that the Republican-dominated FCC once again ignores the public will.

2006-04-30T09:01:00.000-07:00

Out this month on U of MN Press, finally, at long last, my first book:

Urban Nightmares: The Media, the Right and the Moral Panic over the City. ISBN 0-8166-4361-X.

Click on the cover at left for more information.
http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/M/macek_urban.html

2006-02-11T19:59:00.000-08:00

And I've got another book coming out this year, on Peter Lang, about Marxism and Communication Studies. When it rains, it pours...

2006-02-11T10:51:00.000-08:00

Giant Corporations Attack Net Freedom!
The big telecom giants are pressuring Congress to destroy the Internet as we know it. If they get their way, they'll be able to use their control over our access to the net to steer us all to their content and software and services and freeze out everything else. Read more about it here:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060220/wexler

To do something about it, go here:
http://netfreedomnow.org/

If you care at all about the future of freedom on the net, act now.