Today's Unknown News
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Today's Unknown News
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Archive of Cheryl's past columns |
Cheryl's Daily Diatribe: Tuesday, March 19, 2002 Stupid White Men and other Titles Suppressed by Stupid White Men in the Corporate Media HarperCollins: a Sorry Excuse for a Publisher! HarperCollins epitomizes the corporate media's book division! Talk about a sorry excuse for a publisher! Have you ever heard of a publishing house trying NOT to have a best seller? Well, that is what HC is trying to do with Michael Moore's blockbuster "Stupid White Men." Though it is already at #2 on the New York Times best seller list, HarperCollins has worked hard to suppress the book. Why? Because it is critical of George Bush. First HC used the direct approach: refuse to print the book on the pretext that because of the 9/11 attack, it would be "insensitive."(Gee, since when did concern for "insensitivity" stop them from churning out Clinton-bashing trash?) Next they threatened not to print the book unless Moore toned down his sentiment on Bush or included a statement claiming Bush had been doing a good job since 9/11. HC even threatened to DESTROY the books sitting in the warehouse, for Chrissakes! Now, even as the book skyrockets in the ratings, HC is alleged to be making it difficult for distributors to get the book. But that's not the end to the glaring evidence that HC is jumping through hoops at the end of a corpolitical leash. In an apparent granting of yet another political favor, HC has ordered all copies of a book called "Trading with the Enemy" by Nicholas Maier DESTROYED. Why? because James J. Cramer, whom Maier accuses in the book of using media connections to conduct blatant inside trading schemes, has threatened a libel suit. So frigging what? Every subject of every exposé ever written has sued, or threatened to sue, the author and publisher of the exposé, calling all allegations "lies, lies, damn lies!!!" Book publishers — especially biggies like HC — consider the risk of suits part of the cost of doing business, especially with a hot item. And, being a published author myself, I can tell you that the typical book contract is jammed with clauses designed to minimize any danger that the publisher will be held culpable for in the event of any suits! Not to mention the fact that before even signing an exposé author, even a modest-sized publishing house will have its army of lawyers go over the proposal to anticipate any contingencies. So, I am sure that HC's destruction of this book has occurred because someone called in a favor. I mean, after all, having this sort of book circulating just wouldn't help those poor boys from Enron who are being investigated for the same thing! Blinded by the Right I listened to a fascinating interview on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" on 3/18 with David Brock, author of "Blinded by the Right." Brock is a complex man — a former conservative Republican, yet gay, a man with a conscience, yet he ended up writing lies for pay for the American Spectator. Brock found himself disgusted by the systematic dishonesty of the rightwing, esp. its misuse and subversion of the media. When Hillary Clinton said her husband was the victim of a vast rightwing conspiracy, says Brock, she was "right on the money." It was absolutely true. Brock himself is now the victim of an arm of this conspiracy. The Washington Post, for example, had Brock's book reviewed (i.e., trashed) by one of the "American Spectator" "journalists" that Brock mentions unfavorably in his book! And, of course, the Post does not disclose this connection! One caller said she had gone into the Barnes and Noble in Bethesda to try to get the book. There out front on prominent display were all the current rightwing slops — BIAS, etc. Nowhere in sight was Stupid White Men or Blinded by the Right. When she asked for Brock's book, they told here they had ordered one copy and it was sold out, and that even though dozens of people had called asking for the book, the store had no intention of ordering any more than a few. Bestseller! : How to Create an Overnight Silk Purse out of a Sow's Ear I have worked in and with people in the publishing world quite extensively over the years, at all levels, from the bookstore level to the acquisitions and marketing departments of large publishing houses. Thus, I am know firsthand, how the current dirty little system in the publishing world works. Where a newly-released book falls on the New York Times bestseller (and other such lists gauging popularity) is determined entirely by how many copies are ordered. If a publishing house wants to create an "instant bestseller," it is really quite a simple trick. Long before a book even goes to the printing house, the marketing folks have mapped out a campaign, created brochures, booked the author for signings and talk show appearance. Today's book chains like Barnes & Noble buy books from — quite literally — traveling salespeople working for the distributors. A single distributor may handle titles from several big publishing houses. Many houses, including St. Martin's, have their own distribution division. If a publisher wants to pump up a book, the sales reps may be instructed to talk it up, push it hard. On the other hand, if a publisher decides to "deep-six" a title, the rep may be instructed to "bury it," and the purchaser may never even know it exists, especially if they are a typical buyer and goes strictly with what is being pushed. Now that the publishing industry is in bed with the rightwing politicos, it is shaping its lists to meet their "co-conspirators" political needs, as you no doubt gathered from the HarperCollins stories above. Rightwing groups with money (and let's face it, they largely represent big business, so they have gobs of the stuff) now help the publishers push "created best sellers" by buying up these titles ahead by the thousands. In this way, they skew the sales figures in the same way that freepers have been trained to skew polls. The net result: a book that may not even deserve to be in print due to its poor quality, specious basis in fact and the obvious ulterior motives of its authors, may be pumped into number one on the New York Times best seller list before it is even official released, based solely on pre-release orders! If a book is timed to be released just after a royalty period closes, the phony "best seller" status can ride for at least 6 months till the close of the next royalty period. That's when the unsold copies start to be returned by bookstores and subtracted from the book's total sales figures. Alas, by then, the public, thinking the book is a best seller because so many people have bought it, read it, and found it worthy, may go out and buy the book on the strength of this illusion, perpetuating the smoke and mirrors. The saddest thing is the lengths to which publishers will now go to kill a book that deserves to be read Stupid White Men being the primary case in point. DIATRIBBLE : • One of Unknown's most diligent newshounds, Mobythor, sent us this link: http://slate.msn.com/?id=2063042, which is a detailed description of how to spot "spoofed" e-mail. A spoofed e-mail does not contain the name of the real sender in the from box. Instead, the from box may contain anything from your own name, to that of a celebrity. The idea is to trick the recipient into opening it. The motives vary widely: unleashing a virus if there is an attachment (some computer bugs now, I hear, can hop in without an attachment), fooling the recipient into thinking an important person is soliciting their business or support. For example, one spoof a friend of mind opened said it was from John Glenn, but turned out to be a plug for Viagra! Another person (in the linked article) received an e-mail on election day 1996 that was purportedly from Bill Clinton thanking her for her vote! So read up and take notes! I have a feeling this is a trick malicious rightwingnuts are probably VERY familiar with and very likely to use. • Latest Blatant Collusion between Media and Bush Cartel Why doesn't it surprise me that The New Yorker magazine, whose readership consists largely of corporate exec types making at least six figures annually, has been recruited as an arm of the Bush propaganda machine? Just as Bush tries to trump up a reason — any reason! — to invade Iraq, out comes a story in The New Yorker by one Jeffrey Goldberg that purports to expose a connection — a very specious one at that — between Iraq and Al-Quada. Even the CIA says despite years of TRYING to find one, never managed to — and these guys aren't above manufacturing one if they have at least the shred of a convincing base, either! Yet now we are supposed to believe that suddenly a guy who writes for The New Yorker has broken the case — and that it is timed so very coincidentally to fit Bush's needs? Give me a break! Cheryl may be contacted at cherylseal@hotmail.com. Cheryl's Daily Diatribe: Monday, March 18, 2002 American Women: a Case of the "Empresses' New Clothes"? Thanks to Madison Avenue, which mirrors back a fantasy world through the pages of Cosmo, Vogue, and other "women's magazines" and to marketing Czaresses like Oprah Winfrey, American yuppie women have the illusion that they are liberated, empowered, and in control ... that they have come a long way, baby. But the reality is, I fear, very much a case of the "Empresses' new clothes." What do we really see under the transparent wardrobe? My take? A frightened and very disempowered little girl desperate for male approval. I mean, consider the facts. Women are the primary culprits driving the SUV craze. Why? Ask and 9 out of 10 will say it is because they feel "safer" — even though the SUV has been proven to be less safe than an old fashioned large station wagon and is an environmental disaster. But, the "little girl woman" of the U.S. needs, psychologically, to drive a "tank." Women are primarily responsible now for the insane popularity enjoyed by Donald Rumsfeld. They think he is sexy because he promises to go trash someone else's country on "their" behalf — he is thus a surrogate "Daddy" — one that doesn't demand responsible behavior - just beating someone else up, like the hockey Dad in Massachusetts. Of course, Rumsfeld is the surrogate Daddy who, while conning women, could give a rat's ass about their real safety. This is, after all, the same man who, as CEO of Searle, "called in markers" (his own words) to make sure aspartame was approved over the FDA's initial objections. Rumsfeld did so knowing full well the trials showed the sweetener would likely have potentially serious health effects, especially for women, the product's primary consumers. The American woman says she is in control of her own body. Yet in the quest to conform to male models of beauty, she is rampantly self-abusive. Rates of cosmetic surgery, anorexia nervosa, and consumption of drugs, legal and illegal, aimed at enhancing this model are skyrocketing. At the same time, the competition for male approval has driven women to become nastier to one another than at any other time in U.S. history (even AOL, that bastion of non-news, actually ran a story about this). American women helped put one of the most anti-woman administrations in office the U.S. has ever had — an administration that does not believe in reproductive rights or in helping working mothers — or poor mothers — care for their children or for their own health. The American woman believes she is now a power player in the workplace because she's won some executive titles and can wear a nifty suit and carry a briefcase. But she is merely a token at in the male board room; the only right she has won is the right to act like a white man — while receiving less pay. According to a recent congressional study, "Female managers are not only making less money than men in many industries, but the wage gap also deepened during the economic boom years of 1995 to 2000." Another report, this one in the Washington Post finds that "full-time female managers earned on average less than their male counterparts in the 10 industries that employ 71 percent of all female workers. In seven of the 10 fields, the pay difference widened." A General Accounting Office (GAO) study, which used data from the Department of Labor's Current Population Survey, reveals that "a full-time female communications manager earned 86 cents for every dollar a male made in her industry in 1995. In 2000, she made only 73 cents on the man's dollar." Meanwhile, women are the least politically active beings in the country. Women may be more likely to vote, but look who they voted for! But when it comes to any real issue calling for action and making a stand, women are far and few between. At a recent conference on improving national access to health care held in Baltimore, one of the female leaders lamented how hard it was to get women to be participate in any reform effort — even one that affects their own well-being so closely as health care! The only aggressively mobilized women's political groups right now seem to be rightwing front groups for the white male rightwingers. Like the "Independent Women's Forum" a rightwing group that planted editorials throughout the nation's papers, including the Baltimore Sun, whining about how people against SUVs were unAmerican and against safety. According to David Brock, author of Blinded by the Right," the Forum is appallingly anti-feminist — and they are about as "independent" as snarling little rightwing lap dogs." Or women's groups (or individuals, like the pathetic Ann Coulter) who stand ready to lobby fiercely against every right women have won in the past 100 years because they are so desperate to win a scrap of approval from the rightwing white males they worship. One of the reasons I was impressed with Helen here at Unknown is that she is one of the only — if not THE ONLY female webmasters of an activist, independent news site. Yet, though we have some fantastic female newshounds and supporters, they are in the minority. Don't get me wrong — there are some AMAZINGLY brave, activist women out there right now — so far and few between it is frightening, but they are there. Like Barabara Lee, the black congresswoman who cast the single courageous vote in Congress against Bush's oil war. Like Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who has spoken out courageously on many issues her white male counterparts wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole for fear of stepping on corpolitical toes. In fact, the bravest people, male or female, in politics right now are black women! That is why I am still pissed off at Kweisi Mfume for naming CONDOLEEZA RICE for the NAACP's top black image award this year. This award says that Rice's imitation of a white middle aged male is more worthy of recognition than the courageous actions of two black women who stood up AGAINST the white male culture for what is right. Of course, one of the big reasons women have backed off in pursuit of justice — and, apparently, character — is the success of the anti-feminist campaign waged against them by the corporate propagandists. Just as these propagandists have tried to dismiss all environmentalists as "leftwing wackos", they have sought to characterize all activist women as "femi-Nazis." Why? Because a dysfunctional American woman obsessed with pleasing males is good business. These women are the ones who buy the magazines and watch the shows that plug the "desirable female image" that requires billions in cosmetics, clothing, diet aids, self-help books, home products, jewelry, cigarettes (just like men!), etc. to try to duplicate! Those makeup-less, TV-less, back-to-basics, truly self-sufficient women who began to emerge in the 1970s were BAD FOR BUSINESS. So just what have American women gained as of the new millennium? Declining pay for the same work, a thinner safety net for poor women, higher smoking rates, higher violence rates, higher alcoholism rates, a patriarchal, 1950s-style administration that laughs its ass off at its fatuous female supporters behind the scenes as it strips away their rights, rampant anorexia, depression, drug abuse, an epidemic of young girls enmeshed in abusive relationships, and a greater demand for psychiatric services than at any other time in our history. Yep ... you've come a long way, baby. And this is the "liberated woman" model we want to force the rest of the world to adopt? Of course it is! After all, damn good for business. • DIATRIBBLE: The response to our call for a citizens' trial of George W. Bush for crimes against humanity, the environment, and democracy has hit a chord! We have been receiving a steady stream of mail — ALL of it supportive. Not one piece of "you rotten commie you just don't love 'Merika!" Instead the general tone from the public has been "Right on! Nail that sucker!" In fact, we have received offers of technical and advisory help in setting up a special page for our citizens' inquiry. Perhaps most exciting and promising of all, our efforts have helped to inspire a core group of progressive Democrats to push forward even more aggressively with a campaign to impeach Bush. It seems to me that the only hope for a speedy removal of Bush from office is to mobilize Congressional Democrats. So far, they have failed the American people pretty miserably, but one can always hope! As this is a citizens' trail, we hope readers will be willing to participate. Here are the areas we could use: RESEARCHERS: We will assign "newshounds" interested in volunteering specific areas to research related to the case via the Net or other possible sources. In this way, we can gather as much background material as possible in the shortest possible time. LEGAL EAGLES: Anyone with a law or paralegal degree or a penchant for legal research. In building our case, we need to clearly identify as many prosecutable offenses under American law as possible. PUBLICISTS: We want to spread the word about our trial throughout the net and beyond as widely as possible. To that end, we will generate "press releases" about the trial and will need people willing to spend some time finding likely places to post the info. No one needs to spend huge amounts of time on this — unlike the U.S. government, we believe that the best efforts are those that represent a collaboration with the public. We believe that if everyone's voice is heard and respected, in turn, more people will be willing to contribute their bit, knowing they won't be spitting into the wind. So, if you want to help with the "Trial of the Century" (hey, I like to think big!), drop us a line and we will contact you. • Is anyone out there really stupid enough to believe that the sudden move towards peace in the Middle East has ANYTHING to do with the Bush administration? It has been obvious for weeks that Sharon and Bush are actively colluding to keep each other propped in power. So Sharon, to help his own image and make Bush look good, first escalates his aggression against Palestinians, then, with the Bush folks coming into the area, suddenly makes a show of pulling out. The only thing this man and Bush care about are staying in power. They will even temporarily dangle peace like a carrot in front of their nations — just long enough to shore up sagging support. You can rest assured that this "peace effort" will last only long enough to get the "approval points" up. • AMERICA AND ISRAEL: The New Nazi States. America now arranging torture of suspects ... by flying them to "torture zones." Right now it's just "swarthy alleged terrorists" ... but when do suppose activists here in the U.S. will suddenly find themselves whisked off the Egypt or elsewhere for "questioning?" Under Sharon, Israel is degenerating at an appalling rate into a sort of NeoNazi state. Now the International Red Cross reports that Israeli troops are tattooing numbers on the arms of Palestinian prisoners — just the way the Nazis tattooed the Jews. • Did you know that the Federal Aviation Industry now has a crystal ball? Yep, and it is an amazing one that can not only predict the behavior or Americans well into the future, it also knows when any terrorists threat to airlines will all be over. A news release from the FAA this weekend says that the industry will be hurting for the next year or so, and will need lots and lots of money. But, not to worry, the crystal ball says that all Americans will be flying in 2003 and that terrorists attacks will end about then, too. "We foresee that by 2003, there will be no more terrorist attacks." (this was actually stated, close to verbatim). Of course this prediction is not only amazing, it is amazingly serendipitous for the airline industry. After all, the renewed air traffic prediction coincides with the Bush campaign 2003. And, the predictions conveniently indicate that the industry will need barrels of additional corporate welfare to keep expanding its operation. So now, we are not only supposed to hand out corporate pork because of current supposed "dire need," we are supposed to hand it out based on crystal ball predictions! Cheryl may be contacted at cherylseal@hotmail.com. | Cheryl may be contacted at cherylseal@hotmail.com. |