How the American and the Western Press gets the Middle East rebellion and the Midwest Protests wrong

Read Disclaimer Clause, Given at the Bottom, First and Last

If there are concerns that there are no limits to how far the Right will go to defend their objectives, ideology and irrationality, it also helps to have a press that is either shallow or deceptive in the way it reports on complex social and political issues.

Not only was Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a State in the Midwestern US, thoughtless in the way he handled the union workers, many of whom were ready to come to the table and find a common ground for negotiations and compromise to reduce the State deficit, he provoked the lions, tigers and bulls, who can now be legitimately extreme and unreasonable in their demands with full public support, out of their cages. Why would Koch brothers, the Conservative funders behind this Governor, support "a not-so-smart" man like him?

It has been both popular and widely prevalent in the US, of late, for the media to constantly connect or link the Middle East rebellion with the Midwest protests, particularly in the liberal press - be it unconscious or deliberate. It gives the Right even more reason to apply strong-arm tactics against the protesters, who are now being accused of alliance with the "Muslim Brotherhood" and/or "Communism": two terms that scare the ethnocentric, insular, politically conservative Right.

Nothing should be more amusing than people on Conservative news channels continuously linking Muslim Brotherhood with Communists. What the American people and the press often forget is that the former believes very strongly in narrow religious doctrines or dogmas in the dictates of politics, while the latter believes strongly in rejection, elimination or subjugation of religion all together in society and State matters. While spirituality, culture, individual freedom and secularism, as opposed to religion, may be similar or different for both, Muslim Brotherhood is committed to religious doctrines and dictates, Communism is not. How do the two get linked? Possible only in the minds and the propaganda of the Right and a deceptive Press!

Muslim Brotherhood in countries like Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain are trying to overthrow "dictators", who are well funded by the oligarchy, foreign governments and even foreign militaries, while the Midwest protesters are trying to overthrow capitalistic interests that are attacking workers' unions and their right to collective bargaining that could lead to fewer choices...and dictatorship.

To claim the two, Muslim Brotherhood and Communism, are linked is outrageous...unless this kind of press coverage is itself an attempt to subvert political action or a social movement. Provocateurs who attempt to manipulate protesters come in many forms and with many faces. They don't have to be trouble makers...they can be the press that may appear sympathetic, but presents information in subtly skewed manner to distort perception and priorities.

How the press presents issues, what language it uses, what links or connections it makes and what story it sells (and note the word "sell")...can decide on the direction of, dictation on, and domination over a social movement and its political repercussions.

Middle Easterners, many of whom are putting their lives on the line and struggling for basic justice, are worried that the press coverage on the Midwest protests may not only take away attention from their struggles...but skew their issues  - which is a fight for basic fundamental rights than mere workers' benefits.

Wisconsin, USA is no Libya, Africa, but the Right likes to squash it all up, while some of the pretentiously Left press likes to use dramatic language that compromises the nuances and the details.

What is an amusing irony is that big corporations, like Facebook, Twitter, etc. have actually supported the protesters in the Middle East...with what intentions we don't know. On the other hand in the Midwest it is the reverse - where corporations are seen as the enemy that is funding Right wing politics while sabotaging workers' rights. Do you see the media - including so-called liberal MS NBC (in the US) or Democracy Now - with the exception of few reporters in these media organizations - making these differentiations?

This is why keeping our minds open to all kinds of analyses, and not merely standing back and allowing the status quo to continue, is important. If narrow ideas, ideologies and economic theories were exported from the West to its colonial subjects once, we now have a diluted, muted, highly contaminated, pretentious and hypocritical version of justice, equality and human rights being exported to the world from countries with a selective media - that may not even present a critique of its own government well. 

The United States does many things right, and it should be admired and applauded for that...but much of the US press, in general, have been avoiding truths, ignoring facts, distorting important information, skewing relevancy and not ranking issues with proper validity - especially on international matters. Though some improvements are occuring, our vigilance, our own independent vantage points (on some issues) and our paradigmatic uniqueness might help provide more accuracy, or better clarity, on social analyses of political protests and movements in the United States, the Middle East and beyond.