Untitled Document

By Jose Antonio Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 20, 2006; Page C01

It was like a scene out of "The People's Court" -- on one side the mostly white supporters of a gay-friendly bar, on the other the parishioners of a black church in Washington's historic Shaw neighborhood.

Most of the critiques of the Post in this series focus on foreign policy. After all, this is what the Post considers most important, and where it does the most damage.

But the Post does also cover local news, albeit in a haphazard sort of way. And we can get very helpful views of the Post by looking at how they do that coverage. By examining these articles, we can understand where the Post's vantage point is. By seeing what the Post sees when it looks around its community, we can see where it stands. We can locate the one thing that no observer can see directly -- the observer's own position. (A reminder -- this is not about a particular reporter.)

In this article, the Post goes on at great length about a dispute over space. An African-American church has occupied a certain location for a long time. Now gay white men want to open a gay-friendly bar essentially next door. Oh, look at them fight! Oh, look at the contrast, look at the similarities, look at the ironies!

Look at what you don't see is what I say. You don't see the hundreds of thousands of white suburbanites who would crack down on out Gays or Lesbians (they do in Topeka...) or any African-Americans in their neighborhoods. (Or, for that matter, those who do. Straight whites are just the "normal" background to this story.) Nor do you see the vast economic sector of real estate related businesses -- agents, lenders, advertisers -- that keep us all pretty much in our places, and that define a small space for all those who are "different" to share -- or compete for.You don't see, in other words, all of the forces that have set up this fight, that forced these two antagonists into this one corner, instead of letting them each be somewhere else ignoring each other.

Why isn't that the story? It wouldn't be hard to document. Racial segregation in housing has been very well documented for many years, going back at least to forty years ago, when it was THE OFFICIAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT, HELLO! And as for the presence of homophobia in our society, and its ability to force sexual minorities into essentially criminal lives and their related corners and closets, that's common knowledge. (An interesting commentary here includes Pat Calafia's comment that "The city is a map of the hierarchy of desire, from the valorized to the stigmatized. It is divided into zones dictated by the way its citizens value or denigrate their needs. . . . ." I would suggest the zones are dictated not by all citizens, but by an elite.)

Both people of color and visible sexual minorities have been pushed into the urban core areas for a long time, though of course their histories are very different.

So, yes it's ironic to see two oppressed groups fight, and yes both sides have colorful lives, and yes, there are things wrong about both gentrification and about applying religious doctrine in intolerant ways. But the real story is how we got to this point, and why we are still there, and how the system works that put us all where we are.

And after all it does come back to how the Post sees foreign policy. To how the real story of that part of our lives is never in the Post. Because the real story isn't about the "others," about Kurds vs. Shia vs. Sunnis (or Uzbekis or Indonesians). The real story is about the occupiers and invaders, and why they invade, occupy, assassinate, torture -- about how they divide to conquer. The real story is about a group of thugs with government salaries that is determined to keep us in a global petroleum economy and keep control of it -- a collection of human beings that is no more humane or intelligent than an urban street gang or the White Citizens Council. A group of human beings way more embarrassing and bizarre and crucial for us to know about than any gay bar owner or any Bishop of a Scripture Cathedral. There's the real story that the Post can never see, and thus never reports on. Because, of course, they can't see it from where they have chosen to stand.

The New Pravda -- How the Washington Post Maintains the Status Quo

This occasional feature showcases articles in the Washington Post that spin the news to protect the US government as we know it.

My thesis is that the Post is neither liberal nor conservative, but is the house organ of those in power in the federal government, whoever they are. (Of course at the moment they are "conservative," i.e. they claim to support culturally conservative values and small government, and to identity with white workingclass people with fundamentalist faith. These claims are a bit shaky.)

While the articles critiqued here were written by specific reporters, this critique is of the whole internal process of the Post. We can assume that what is printed is not necessarily what the bylined reporter wrote or wanted to write. Post reporters are mid-level employees of a large corporation, which, like all corporations, has a "political line" that its employees must follow, and that line overrides its commitment to fact-based journalism. Just as at Pravda under the Soviet Union, some "stars" get a little more leeway, and occasionally stories seem to stretch the party line a bit.

But the overall party line at the Post is consistent from day to day --

Federal power is exercised by responsible individuals who are motivated by sincere values and ideology to do the best thing for the nation and its people.
Political differences in Washington are almost always matters of principled opinion and personality, of region and local interest and agency infighting. They do not reflect corrupt power blocs of people seeking personal profit. They also do not reflect grassroots movements for social change.
Everyone worth taking seriously is a liberal or a conservative or a moderate, as defined by certain simple "hot button" issues. Radicals of all kinds are funny and silly.
"National security" decisions in particular are not driven by corporate profit or by lust for power, but by genuine concern for our safety. These decisions are sometimes mistaken, but are never foolish, pathological, or criminal. Only those who have been employed in "national security" work have standing to say what "national security" means; if they say so, keeping a dictator in power in Central Asia is vital, while preventing nuclear reactors here in the US from being blown up is a minor concern. As for civil liberties, it's nice to protect them procedurally, but security (as defined by experts) always comes first.
There may be a few "bad apples" in the high circles of federal power, but the independent mainstream media will seek them out and they will be punished. There never has been and never will be a corrupt conspiracy making our national decisions. There also never has been a grassroots movement based on popular outrage that has made a difference in people's lives.
While there are always scandals in Washington, they just come and go, always unrelated to each other, with no need for organized action by citizens to fundamentally change the system. There are no patterns of power and privilege operating behind the scenes.

And if you buy all that, I have a nice monument I want to sell you, with a great view of the White House and the Capitol and the place where they keep that Constitution thing people used to care about so much.

A note on national security written in July, 2004:

A year ago, most of Congress, most of the mainstream media, and Washington insiders in general agreed that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and that obviously the U.S. could prevail in Iraq in whatever way it chose to. Whoops. A few years before that, the same crowd believed that Enron was the exemplary business for a new era, and that tax cuts for the rich would create employment. Somewhere in there, we were told that SDI would work and that there was a new internet-based economy. Once upon a time, the precursors of this bunch believed that we could and had to "stop communism" in Vietnam. In these inner circles, there is deep heartfelt appreciation for every set of the emperor's new clothes . Let's face it, the claims of the "national security community" and the average highly paid pundit or pol are about as reliable as the average late-night infomercial -- and the cost of believing them is a lot higher.

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The New Pravda -- How the Washington Post Maintains the Status Quo

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