by Gary Null
Progressive Radio Network, February 13, 2012
One of the most famous examples of journalist integrity, that has served as exemplar of how journalism can correct wrongs and bring justice to bear, is the story of Emile Zola – a French naturalist writer and supporter of political liberalization in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
The case involves a Captain Alfred Dreyfus, an artillery officer in the French army who happened to have been Jewish. Following a scandal of French military secrets reaching the German embassy, growing anti-semitism convicted Drefus on charges of treason leading to his imprisonment on Devil’s Island in French Guiana. Although evidence was available to implicate another officer, the right wing French government and media refuted it and continued with its original verdict against Dreyfus. Even the French officer, Lt. Colonel Picquart who uncovered the officer who was the real spy, was sentenced to serve a term in a prison.
Taking up the cause on behalf of Captain Dreyfus, Emile Zola risked his career by composing an article entitled – J’accuse – I accuse – that was printed on the front page of Paris’ daily. His article accused the highest echelons of French military and justice, and even the Church which held consider power in France, of anti-Semitism and corruption in accusing Dreyfus. For his sense of justice, Zola was convicted for criminal libel, but rather than serving prison time, he had fled to England and didn’t return to France until the right wing French administration fell. Almost a decade later, Zola was finally pardoned of all charges and became the hero standing up against corruption he rightfully deserved.
Who is our Emile Zola today in mainstream media? Who is it that holds the facts to accuse those who falsify truth for their own profit, gain, influence and power, who speaks on behalf of citizens against those with the means and control to profit from them?
Before we continue our myth that 99 percent of Americans sleep on the side of angels and the other 1 percent bask with devils, we need to ask ourselves why we constantly blame others for the choices we permit those who we select, listen to, admire in power, to make on our behalf.
What would happen if we stopped blaming the Clinton administration and Phil Graham for eviscerating the Glass-Steagall Act, altering the Commodity Futures Trading act and neutering the SEC to assure Wall Street that no one among the banking elite would be subject to scandals leading to legal actions? Nor should we therefore blame Wall Street for its holding 100 trillion in credit default swaps and derivatives to continue their casino gambling.
So let us stop blaming the attorney generals from all states for penalizing hundreds of banks and thousands of individuals, who engaged in criminal behavior – such as liar loans and robo-signing – with miniscule fines.
Let us not blame the Federal Reserve for dishing out $16 trillion of taxpayer guaranteed loans with toxic valued assets and collateral at 0.25 interest across 20,000 transactions to domestic and foreign banks, hedge funds, and major corporations
Let us stop blaming Barack Obama and his administration for hiring only former Washington insiders from both the Clinton and Bush administrations to continue the entrenchment of corporate power in our policy decision making.
We must also stop blaming credit card companies who receive government loans at 0.25 percent and are permitted to debit cardholders at 29 percent or more for mispayments.
Let us not blame Walmart and major corporations from important cheap, toxic products manufactured with slave labor.
Let us not blame the economic experts who to this day paint a distorted picture of our recovery and growing economy.
Let us not blame the love-fests of the global elite at DAVOS and the Business Roundtable who believe their power, wealth and class status permit them to devise and direct our domestic and international policies.
Let us not blame the president and congress failing to implement a moratorium on home foreclosures and providing small businesses that qualify with no-interest loans, which could provide employment to millions of Americans.
Let us forgive corporate America’s celebration of financial profits from off shoring jobs while having closed down over 50,000 factories in the US during the past dozen years and at the same time importing HB-1 foreign workers to replace 8.4 million educated American workers for lesser pay.
Neither should we blame Barack Obama for exonerating all the crimes of Bush-Cheney and their accomplices for knowingly creating secret intelligence offices in the Vice President office, which bypassed our national security apparatus, in order to divine a rationale for going to war in the Middle East.
As a constitutional scholar, let us not blame Obama for undermining our constitutional liberties by supporting the Patriot act, the Homeland Security act, FISA and the new National Defense Authorization Act that consolidates more power over Americans within the White House.
Let us not blame the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC for manipulating state legislators to support bills and policies that would overturn and alter existing laws for financial gain to the ruling elite and the political campaigns of those who support them.
Let us not blame the lobbyists, private consultants and experts, many of whom are former members of Congress or government agencies, who draft legislation that benefits their industries at the cost of the public good.
Let us not blame the military industrial intelligence-gathering industry for its massive financial fraud and redundant operations amounting to approximately $1.3 trillion annually when only $250 billion is necessary to keep Americans safe.
Let us not blame the Bush and Obama administrations for neglecting 12 million hungry American children, the over 50 million citizens in deep poverty and the other 50 million working poor. And in the meantime, lets forgive the government for intentionally manipulating unemployment figures for political gain.
Let us not blame the House , Senate and the White House for supporting off shore oil drilling and billions of dollars in subsidies for clean coal, nuclear and hydrofracking natural gas while ignoring the cleaner more efficient geothermal and wave energy technologies.
Let us not blame any of the last five administrations for encouraging the FDA and the USDA to denounce complementary approaches for the prevention and treatment of disease while aligning federal health policies with the greed of Big Pharma and private insurance carriers who virtually write our healthcare programs, including Medicare, and prevents government from purchasing inexpensive generic drugs in order to reap an additional $1 trillion in profits.
Let us not blame our Surgeon General and our Secretary of Health and Human Services failing to offer alternative healthcare choices nationwide. Rather, we should forgive the FDA its attacks on the natural and supplement industries, even preventing those who grow cherries and walnuts from suggesting these foods can actually prevent certain illnesses.
And while we are at it, let us forgive the FDA for permitting known pharmaceutical drugs that have maimed and killed thousands of patients to continue to be advertized and prescribed to patients.
Let us not blame American medicine for being the number one cause of death in the US while ignoring any criticism about its methodologies, drug’s evidence for efficacy and safety, and the regulatory approval processes.
Let us not blame the psychiatric industry for creating non-existent mental disorders, such as Oppositional Defiance Disorder, in order to increase medication rates and drug sale profits.
Let us not blame the mental health centers in our inner cities for spearheading community programs to diagnose upward to 80 percent of children and young adults through erroneous test batteries such as Teen Screen to increase positive medical diagnoses.
Let us not blame mainstream media for offering products that promote disease such as obesity and diabetes in children and adults.
Let us not blame the five past administrations for pushing neoliberal free-market globalization practices in their for globalization. Nor should we blame the IMF for the consequences of its draconian rules and structural readjustments opening markets in poor nations for foreign economic colonization.
Let us not blame the FBI, CIA and Homeland Securities for the militarization of our domestic police forces and their intrusion into our lives without warrant or due-process, including their punishing the dissent of peaceful environmental and social protesters who find themselves on enemy terrorist FBI watch lists.
And lets forgive the dismal failures behind our government’s sanctioned domestic wars – the war on drugs, the war on cancer, the war against poverty, the war on terrorism – that serve only the high and mighty who profit from their bankrupt agendas.
Let us stop blaming the immense profits to private corporations running our prisons and the hidden agendas to incarcerate more Americans for minor misdemeanors and increase class warfare and renew Jim Crow racism with new forms of segregation.
Let us stop blaming teachers for graduating illiterate students and their curriculums designed by private corporations that never challenge students to have the intellectual skills to be independent, creative thinking human beings.
Let us not blame the American media for failing to look honestly at economic bubbles – equity partnerships, hedge funds, subprime and commercial market - -and then warning citizens in advance.
Let us not blame the producers within the entertainment industry who inundate us with vulgar, mind-numbing, violent programs and movies carries American culture to the bottom of etiquette, manners, decency and the ethics.
We must also forgive the agro-industrial complex -- the Monsantos and Duponts of the world -- who seek the monopolization of the global food supply and manipulate its control through genetic engineering of seeds.
We must forgive all corporations who contribute to the pollution and destruction of our environment.
Let us cease blaming the corporate Democrats and the corporate Republicans and their mouthpieces in the media promulgating rigid ideologies that only serve the interests of those in power and not the common people.
Let us stop blaming the US military for causing the permanent disability and death of countless elderly, parents and children in the Middle East and forgive our media’s refusal to acknowledge their suffering.
Finally let us forgive all the administrations from JFK forward who expanded the military industrial complex for a global imperial outreach, sugar coated in the rhetoric of freedom and democracy, while simultaneously supporting dictators and despots around the world.
Let us also not blame the Republicans for claiming to represent smaller, efficient government while supporting the largest social welfare system in history for large banks and major corporations in the form of grotesque bailouts and subsidies.
When we cease to blame government, banks, corporations, the media and influential policy makers and opinion leaders for the choices we have made, then we must ask what personal and collective responsibilities are there for the plight and crises the nation is in? Since our current system of governance is beyond reform from within the system itself, are we then capable of dissociating ourselves from it?
And we should pay attention to those who accept the torch of Emile Zola’s courage to speak truth to power and accuse those who deny freedom and democracy throughout the nation. We do have our Zola’s in the voices of Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Tom Engelhardt, Alan Grayson, Chris Hedges, Michael Hudson, Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, Ralph Nader, Greg Palast, Dylan Ratigan, Robert Reich, Rebecca Solnit, David Swanson, and others.
At this present moment, individuals identifying themselves as progressives and independents represent 41 percent of the population. If you are among this group, you are in the majority exceeding official Democrats and Republicans. Therefore it is for us to decide, individually and collectively, what standards of ethically based policies and democratic structures should be fought for as we move forward.
Otherwise, just continue to watch Fox and the major networks in order to perpetuate the Manichaean myth of 99 versus 1 so the blame-game can live on.
March 7, 2012 