Luke Rudkowski: Don’t Become What You Are Fighting, Russia Today

This is an excerpt from Luke Rudkowski’s inspiring and informative speech at the Treason in America Conference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVqFD3S5i1A

The dawn of a new age of muckraking…
Posted on 30 March 2010.
By Luke Rudkowski

In these rapidly changing times, technology is playing a key role in democratizing the most important function in our society: the dissemination of information.

Today, talking heads, corporations, governments, editors and publishers no longer make the definitive judgment on what is news and what is not. More than 100 years after Upton Sinclair wrote his muckraking book “The Jungle,” the tradition of muckraking has a new life on the Internet.

Sinclair set out on a daunting task: to infiltrate the meatpacking industry in Chicago. He took months off from work and immersed himself in the business, working undercover to expose the gross mistreatment of workers. Sinclair gave vivid details about immigrant life in Chicago, depicting poverty and homelessness and exploitation by the powerful.

Today, all it takes to create an expose is a laptop and a camera, or even just a cell phone. Anyone can take video and upload it to YouTube for the world to see. This accessibility opens up the possibility of an uncontrolled flow of information around the world.

The people now have eyes and ears all over the world, and are waiting to broadcast. This gives them an advantage over the mainstream media, which cannot always be at the right place at the right time. This exposure allows humanity to see and understand issues more clearly than ever, as events unfold in front of our very eyes from all perspectives.

The mainstream media occasionally misses big stories that rock society – either by negligence or on purpose – that online activists uncover. For example, in his book “Here Comes Everybody,” Clay Shirky details how bloggers brought down Trent Lott.

“This would have been a classic story of negative press coverage altering a political career – except that the press didn’t actually cover the story,” Shirky writes. It was the bloggers that picked up on Lott’s racist remarks during his speech at Storm Thurmond’s 100th birthday party, which eventually cost Lott his leadership position in the Senate.

Recently, a groundbreaking story coined “Climategate” spread like wildfire through the Internet before making its way into mainstream media. This story concerned emails between scientists who produce studies to support theories of global warming. In the emails, the scientists were openly discussing destroying studies that didn’t support their theories.

This scandal, which was brought to the world’s attention thanks to the Internet, severely damages the validity of the global warming theory. If it weren’t for the Internet, this story might never have seen the light of day.

Major media outlets have not continued the tradition of muckraking for many reasons. It is a lot more efficient for a news organization to keep a reporter in the office writing news stories every day than to send him away for six months on a reporting trip that may only produce three stories.

It also has a lot to do with corporate relations. A news organization run by a corporation does not want to rock the boat and go after other large corporations to which they may have ties. It is impossible for a news agency to report fairly on an issue when their profits are involved. The news programs have been caught many times suppressing stories because their sponsors would be negatively affected by the media attention.

Corporations are only interested in profit and that’s why we have seen them forget about muckraking journalism – it is not profitable. Judith and William Serrin said it best in “Muckraking: The Journalism That Changed The World:” “Some publishers and broadcast executives might as well be selling shoes as selling news.”

Today, five corporations control nearly 90 percent of the mainstream media. Almost everything we see, hear or read in newspapers, magazines, books, radio and television is owned by Time Warner, Disney, News Corporation, Bertelsmann or Viacom. The democratization of information via the Internet could not have come at a better time.

The Internet not only allows us a greater and richer perspective on events, but covers events that would naturally be censored by the mainstream media and their corporate interests. It gives activists an opportunity to see, hear and smell for the people, looking out for the masses and at the same time exposing the elite. This threatening wave of truth can not only end the profits of the five information-controlling corporations, but reform and revolutionize society. Once the people fully recognize the potential of this tool to express their grievances, they will be an unstoppable force.

Day by day, more information is controlled by fewer hands – but because of technology, there are no longer any gatekeepers. We are able to get a rich abundance of perspectives and views online that help us grasp and understand important events in our history as they unfold. The Internet has become more effective than traditional media. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, it still makes a sound. With the help of the Internet, today a single isolated tree can make so much noise that the whole world will hear it.

http://rt.com/Top_News/2009-12-03/dawn-new-age-muckraking.html

Thanks Luke for the clear message you and WAC are sending!

With out Truth there can no Justice and without Justice there will never be peace!

It is impossible to bring about Peace with violence.

What you said was 100% spot on.....

Thank you brother!

Regards John

Thanks Luke. You are so right!

Nonviolent peaceful resistance is the correct way forward. They want to conflate 911 Truth with violence so they can take more draconian measures against us. Don't give them what they want. Keep spreading the word, peacefully.

And secondly

don't side with Alex Jones by taking a right wing or Libertarian political position, that's a grave mistake, because it could amount to building a house on shifting sand.

but that said, my reaction to your talk Luke is HERE HERE!

Left / RIght is a false paradigm

You should really be specific about which issues you are referring to. Both sides of the false paradigm have good and bad stances, so to use the Left or Right terminology to categorize stances is a mistake.

That's what I mean - don't take a political position

simply let it be about the truth and history without a political bias. One day that's going to burn Alex Jones, failing to heed that.

Politics kills movements, plain and simple.

I'm just saying no politics. Not left OR right, let that be another matter if at all possible.

For a model there's Ghandi and MLK Jr. that's the pattern, nothing more, nothing less.

Then we just let the chips fall where they may.

I am confused

Alex Jones speaks out against the Left / Right paradigm all the time.

alex jones

thanks zombie bill hicks for bringing that footage of alex jones to attention
people can be judged by their actions and its there to see

We all make mistakes.

Judge Alex Jones by ALL of his actions, not just one. I am close to some of the people who organized that demonstration, and they were hurt and offended by Alex Jones's behavior that day. But that is just one day, and the same folks have forgiven AJ, so we should forgive him, too. Alex Jones is up early at least six days every week telling people about the lies coming their way. He has done so much to build awareness about the lies regarding 9-11, Oklahoma City Bombing, USS Liberty, and other false flag attacks, as well as lies regarding vaccines, fluoride in water, FEMA camps, Monsanto, Obama, Right vs. Left, chemtrails, the New World Order, Bilderberg group, CFR, and on and on. Alex Jones has brought so many people into the truth movement, you have got to give him credit. He admits he is not perfect. He has bad days, just like all of us. When you are as persistent and consistent as Alex Jones those bad days will unfortunately come at inopportune times. Thank you Alex Jones for all you do my brother.

We need more thinking like this.

It often gobsmacks me how 'into' weapons some people are, so much so that when you ask them why they have so many or are so enthusiastic about them, that they portray me as the absurd one.

the scary thing is the amount of people that think like that.

These speeches and this type information needs to be delivered to the youth.

OOXX

Fine words. We love you, Luke!

alex jones proved he's compromised

over and over we see who he is...
take a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60CqFTs9pl8