One of the basic, and the most important tenets of democracy
is ‘CRITICAL THINKING’.
Let me quote after one of our most influential
(internationally) former US Presidents Jimmy Carter:
“Critical thinking is thinking that proceeds on the basis of
careful evaluation of premises and evidence and comes to conclusions as
objectively as possible through the consideration of all pertinent factors and
the use of valid procedures from logic (Carter, 1973 - 1*).
In order to be able to perform these mental processes, one
has to have enough of information on the subject. ‘Enough of information’ doesn’t mean that the information
coming from one source, no matter how extensively it may cover the
subject, is sufficient. A single source is doomed
to have the non-objective fact references, and opinions.
This is why in the Western Democracies the information flows
freely, and all citizens have the same, non-impeded access to the various
sources of information.
Contrary to the totalitarian systems (based on communism, or
any other Orwellian society), where the information is censored, and the
citizens are prohibited to access the information they seek - but they are fed
with the government approved opinions, removing the critical thinking from the
equation - we, in the Western democracies are free to seek, and examine the
information, no matter where it comes from - and make our own determination as
to what the truth really is.
I grew up in a country, where the government minders, for decades,
were letting in, only a small amount of the Western information, so the
population might have been fooled in believing in their truthful approach. It was the communist Poland. Not like in Russia (then USSR), some of
the information was getting through.
The proximity of the West, and the active informational campaign by the
US, undeniably made an impact on the level of political education in the
general population. So, the
‘critical thinking’ had some real basis, although manipulated by both sides of
the political barricade. We all
know the history - in the early nineties, the country which tried to control
the information the most, fell apart.
The USSR was no more, and a host of the new ‘democratically minded’ new
countries came into being, and some others (like Poland, or East Germany)
removed the shackles put on them by the USSR as a result of the WWII.
With a few instances of the modern history where even in the
States, some critical thinking was strictly prohibited (McCarthyism of the
fifties) - Americans enjoyed completely free and not-impeded
access to various sources of the news, limited only by the
languages they were transmitted.
Although the majority of the Americans have been completely
disinterested in the World’s affairs, and the un-impeded access to the
knowledge hasn’t translated itself in the political knowledge of the most of
the US population, some cherish the possibilities, and use them to better their
ability to have the well-balanced and just opinion on the events which force
themselves into our lives.
No matter how isolationist one may be - there is no denying
- that the events, like the Putin’s annexation of Crimea, or Israeli incursion
into Gaza, affect all of us, directly or indirectly.
I have always searched for the different news sources. It is BBC, which for years has been a
great source of slightly alternative point of view form the American
media. There is French24, another
great source of the alternative views…
There is RAI – the Italian TV Channel with their excellent news segments
(only in Italian). Since 2003,
there was another player on the information market - AlJazeera English. The news organization founded and owned
by the ruling family of Qatar.
We all have been very skeptical of the possibly biased and
skewed picture coming from this network…
And then, in time the AlJazeera English has proven indispensable to
create the full picture of the events.
It brought to the computer screen the most prominent journalists from
various countries of the World. We
all admire Sir David Frost (2*)- the author of the incredibly blunt and probing
series of interviews with former President Nixon. This giant of the journalism run in AlJazeera English a
segment airing the interviews with many great, and sometimes controversial
figures of the world’s politics, and culture. ‘Frost all over the World’ was the program I tried never to
miss…
This network brought a number of the world renowned
journalist to our computers. A
Palestinian born Marwan Bishara with his ‘Empire’ - often controversial program
dissecting the current affairs.
Many field reporters I grew to like and appreciate - like an
Australian Peter Greste, who provided great reporting from the crisis stricken
areas of the world - until was imprisoned by Egyptian Regime on false charges
of ‘aiding and abetting the terrorist organization - Muslim Brotherhood’.
For years while working on my computer, a small window with
the AlJazeera live stream was a part of my MO.
However everything ended in 2013, when Qatar based AlJazeera
network bought Al Gore’s Current Network (*3).
When it was announced, I couldn’t understand why anyone
would allow for such deal. One
thing was to listen, and watch AlJazeera English as an alternative news station
- from the outside of the US, completely another was to allow a foreign forces
broadcast from our soil. It was,
in my opinion, unwise, and simply dangerous, because of the possible wrong
message… For many, the information
coming from the outside sources is scrutinized much more than from the American
Network. And so, it happened. AlJazeera America was created and
became carried by the most of the Cable companies in the country.
However, the thing which I haven’t anticipated was that at
that same time the original AlJazeera English live stream became UNAVAILABLE IN
THE USA. Anybody trying to dial on
their computers http://www.aljazeera.com/watch_now/ receives in the middle of
the screen a black-boxed message: ‘THE VIDEO YOU ARE TRYING TO WATCH CANNOT BE
VIEWED FROM YOUR CURRENT LOCATION.
VISIT ALJAZEERA.COM/AMERICA TO VIEW CONTENT AVAILABLE IN THE USA’.
Unfortunately, the Aljazeera America is a boring, digested,
resembling-other-american-channels news station. No controversy, no deeply probing editorials - it smells
censorship.
I would never thing that I would be limited in my news
sources in America. Access to the
information, and the critical thinking are the basis of the Democracy.
And yet - someone decided, that American Public is NOT
AUTHORIZED to make a choice to watch the AlJezeera English and its stream and
videos. You can access the
Internet channel, but all the videos bear the same censorship message.
So, what is the difference between the Internet blocking in
China, and Internet blocking in America?
This incident (and I hope it is isolated incident) is at
least worrying. What is the state
of our Democracy if the News are government minded? It was explained that the stream is limited (prohibited)
because of the licensing limitations - after inception of the American based
AlJazeera America. But is it a
commercial, or political decision?
Or a political usage of the commercial regulation…
Can anybody answer these questions?
______________________________________________
*1 - http://www.intime.uni.edu/model/democracy/crit.html
*2 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Frost
*3 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_TV
farther reading: http://www.intime.uni.edu/model/democracy/demo.html
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