Tuesday, August 02, 2005

22. What about the alternative or radical or foreign news media - won't they be interested in my story of legal or judicial corruption?

The big corporations own most major news media in America, but they don't own or control all of it yet. There is a somewhat lively alternative or radical media, mostly found now on the internet, although that is being increasingly censored, with websites erased and de-platformed, and especially being downgraded or blocked altogether from search results.

Such alternative media are important - and usually a much better source for news than the mainstream media, which is so heavily filtered and bent to benefit the big corporations. But alternative media does not have the large following it deserves, although that following is passionate. Getting your story in the alternative media, may not do much for you in real life, in the same way that a story in the mainstream media tends to get a reaction from politicians and the public.

You might ask, why doesn't someone start a new kind of cable television news network, that tells the real news about corruption in the government and courts? Well, such a project takes a lot of money, and people and corporations with big money, are not interested in funding a radical news network, that would damage the power of the rich people and corporations.

Also, if such a radical news network got started and became popular, one of two things would happen. Either the big companies would buy it, and slowly force it to become more submissive to the corporations and government; or else, the legal system would start to destroy it.

In revenge for telling the stories of corruption, judges and lawyers would allow lots of lawsuits to start destroying the alternative news service. Very quickly, the company would be broke and bankrupt and unable to provide alternative news at all - which is why no one is investing in the start of such a radical television news service in the first place. Media people see they cannot get legal protection in America, if they expose the crimes of judges and lawyers. Gangster judges in bribery will be happy to put that media company on trial and say they owe millions to crooked lawyers and to people who pay bribes.

This is the way it goes down in the USA: The legal system threatens to silence and destroy those who start to criticise the system, especially the media; and so media are naturally silent and indulgent regarding judicial and legal corruption.

So even in the alternative or radical news media, it is very hard to get these media to cover your particular story of legal or judicial corruption, however interesting or significant. Inside the United States, any one who does journalism, even on the internet, has largely internalised the fear of the legal system, and the fear of exposing wrong-doing of lawyers and judges who have not already been targeted by some government agency..

The alternative and radical media doesn't like to admit it, but they, too, are afraid, even if they do not say so. And they are more vulnerable than big media, because they don't have big money for lawyers and big political connections.

The little person, the little media magazine or web-zine, or small publisher, can be much more easily destroyed by a single lawsuit. Or banned or put in jail on false charges.

Journalists and people with websites have not only been sued, but also had their freedom of speech banned, and been criminally charged or jailed in America, sometimes for things that seem 'unrelated' to their journalism. The reason you may not know about these events, of course, is once again that big media is not reporting on these stories. The big media doesn't want to rouse the anger of the American people, by making it too obvious that little people with websites are getting criminally charged and jailed.

So alternative media in America, helpful as it is in many ways, still stays away from the most taboo subject in all of American journalism: the vast corruption of America's judges and lawyers. Even all sorts of radicals and rebels, are in fear of the great American legal monster, how it will come and destroy them if they dare to speak too boldly.

The alternative media, like so many in America, now tries to play it safe, by merely often reacting to what they read in the mainstream media. Or else they tend to analyse and take apart the mainstream media, while looking for the little nuggets of truth that still come through the propaganda, if you keep hunting between the lines. The alternative media will take the little detail on the back pages of some newspaper article, and point out how it combines with something else to point to a deeper truth behind the superficial news story.

But no alternative media outlet is making a significant attack on exposing new cases of legal corruption, if such a case is not already in the news media loop. This is a topic they think it is wiser to leave for the bigger and more well-funded news organisations, which of course won't touch the topic either.

So it is pretty much of an empty hope, to think that some alternative journalist will be brave enough and interested enough, to start exposing your particular case of corruption by a dishonest lawyer or judge.

It is very sad how America has become the land of fear, in its journalism like in much of its daily life.

Also, if you look outside of the borders of America to try to find a journalist, your own particular case of corruption, is unlikely to be a story they want to tell. America does not have a good reputation in much of the world now. Outsiders often see America as a country that starts illegal wars, kidnaps and tortures people, and holds them without trial at places like Guantanamo.

So your own particular case of getting victimised by America's legal system, is just one more little case in a country that other people think is crooked and nasty anyway. You are just one more victim, compared to tens of thousands of dead bodies of children and civilian dead in places where USA bombs and drone planes have rained down hell and death on people.

And besides, other countries don't easily understand - given that the USA, for all of its flaws, appears to be somewhat of a democracy with 'free media' - they don't understand why your case isn't being covered by media in the USA. If there is no major media on you in your own country, it is difficult for media in another country to start digging in to facts, given the barriers of possible language differences and cultural mis-understanding, and lack of staff resident on USA territory.

With today's smaller news organisation budgets, most countries take their 'foreign news' from the international news wire services. Other countries don't have budgets to send people looking to the USA for 'fresh' news stories, they mostly go to the USA to say something about big stories that are already being covered, and add a personal touch to connect with viewers back home in their native language, on stories like the USA presidential elections, or riots sweeping across USA cities.

But what about the media that is affiliated with the government, in the countries of major USA political rivals, such as Russia or China or Cuba or Venezuela or Iran? Here again, one problem is that the case of one victim being mauled by judges and lawyers, is a very 'small' story, versus the geo-political and international issues that will fill the web pages or television segments on 'foreign news'.

But another issue is that, most countries of the world are rather sensitive about the issue of 'legal and court corruption', because they may well have some issues and vulnerability of their own in this regard. A lot of criticism can be made of many countries' courts, as biased or cruel or politically bent.

One can also sometimes reasonably assume, that the USA has worked out a quiet 'deal' with other countries, whereby if those countries don't publicly criticise the court scandals of the USA, the USA propaganda apparatus won't do too much criticism of their courts, either. This might even be true of some of the biggest rivals to the USA.

Your personal tragedy as a victim of judicial and legal corruption, is a major matter to you and your family and those who love you. But it's just one more tragedy, in a world of people being tortured and killed and starved and made homeless by the millions. Your tragedy is important enough to be major local news in the area where you live, and maybe important enough to be known across the USA. But internationally, it's hard for a complex story of corruption to be covered anywhere else, unless it is first a story in your own homeland.

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