Alternative News Sources

Don’t expect to get all the news – not even all the news that’s fit to print – from the usual news sources! After all, who is deciding what’s “fit to print” or broadcast?
by Charlie Leck

There is a significant uprising going on in America right now but we are not hearing about it through ordinary news circles. You must look to alternative news sources to read about it. I hope you are catching the news.

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay
[Nation Magazine]

The Nation Magazine informs me that over one-thousand protestors were arrested last Saturday in demonstrations that closed down the Brooklyn Bridge. I didn’t catch that in the regular news!

There’s a lot going on in America that the ordinary press doesn’t cover. It’s actually pretty sad. For years I’ve been urging people to find some alternative news sources to keep up on what’s really happening in our country. There are a number of good ones. The Nation may be too tough for a lot of you. It leans heavily to the left and often loses its own impartiality.

I recommend AlterNet to you as a second level of news coverage. There are some mighty good stories run there and they are pretty well sourced and documented for you. For instance, there’s a very good story (an interview with Colin Greer, President of New World Foundation) running there right now called: A 40-Year Scan of the Right-Wing Corporate Takeover of America. It’s really worth a read. It won’t make you happy unless you are Corporate America.

Here’s just a taste of the interview:

Don Hazen: Why have conservatives succeeded so dramatically in this period, and liberals and progressives are arguably the weakest in decades?

Colin Greer: There is no single causal factor. The shaping of these two divergent paths begins in the 1980s when you had the last flourish of an expansive society. But the last three years of the '70s were characterized by stagflation and disappointment and took a great toll, forfeiting a real sense that the constant growth of openness in American society and economy was endlessly sustainable. Fast-forward to the present and we have the twin dominance of austerity, i.e. eviscerating public spending as the solution to economic crises; and aristocracy, represented by the protected tax and profit oasis of the wealthiest 1 percent.

It’s instructive to note that events in the U.S. are not in isolation. Back in the '60s and '70s when progressive movements were in ascendency, the liberation themes of the time were part of a global anti-colonial uprising, and broad disgust at the war in Vietnam. Today, trade policies and globalization means that the other major economies of the world are also in the grips of a greed and hyper-profit which is in the process of discarding hard won values, rights and decent living conditions.

Here’s a suggestion: Put an icon on your computer desktop to AlterNet. Go there a couple of times a week and scan the story titles. A few will always catch your attention and make you curious.

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P.S. Here's a list of alternative news sources on-line. Some of them are good and others are terrible, so be picky if you go here looking for other sources of news.

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