http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=15&entry_id=34037By Edward M. GomezDear "World Views" Readers:
Today's item is the last one that will appear here. After the publication of today's column, this regular, daily feature of S.F.Gate, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle, will come to an end.
... News flash: There is no such thing as objectivity in American journalism. Instead, in large part as a result of the formulaic practices that are taught in U.S. journalism schools, what most mass-media news organizations pursue is what might be described as merely the presentation of the appearance of objectivity (or "objectivity") in their reporting about any particular subject. Thus, on television, the same talking heads from the so-called left and the so-called right (American media incorrectly use the terms "liberal" and "conservative" all the time, but that's the subject of another discussion) routinely appear, simplistically representing their host programs' dutiful attempts to appear "objective."
Against this backdrop, during the past several years, whenever a reporter, news analyst or commentator has dared to state the irrefutably, fact-based truth about certain subjects (examples: George W. Bush is a liar; the U.S.-led Iraq war is illegal under international law; the Bush-Cheney regime has consistently violated the U.S. Constitution whose provisions its officials swore to uphold), inevitably, like bugs crawling out from under rocks, those whose own worldviews or bases of power or senses of certitude or rightness about the way the world is or should be who have felt threatened by the stating of such truths have popped up and criticized or insulted the bearers of such information.
... One central, constant theme has percolated through many of the daily news summaries that have appeared here over the past several years. That is that the rest of the world yearns for the United States to become a respectable member of the international community of nations again. Around the globe, governments and the people they represent long for the U.S. to assume a principled, credible leadership role in world affairs and to step back from the brink of self-destruction to which the Bush-Cheney regime led it and where it still hovers dangerously today.
On the eve of a new year in which, apparently, so many people in so many places will be hoping against hope for their governments to serve them better; for local and global economies to improve; for their basic human rights to be recognized and protected; for meaningful advancements in education, health care, public transportation and care of the environment that will directly affect their lives to emerge; and for a tidal wave of peace to break out everywhere, concerned citizens of the world are counting on the United States to play multiple, important roles to aid and protect the planet and its inhabitants. In the past eight years, a huge gulf has emerged between what the United States historically has purported to be and what its actions and policies in the real world have demonstrated that it has become. Can its new, soon-to-be-installed government close this unsettling and dishonorable gap? Will it have the desire and the determination to do so?
Will it bring the long, dark, destructive, Bush-Cheney-Republican experiment in American fascism to an end?
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