Cuba jails its independent journalists. The U.S. media keeps its independents unemployed.

Press putas are entitled to their opinions no matter how absurd they might be. Indeed, everybody is certainly entitled to express their opinions in a free country, and everybody knows that an opinion is just that, just an opinion, therefore, for whatever it's worth, we can take it or leave it. But some people believe professional opinions, especially from highly paid, politically-correct opinionators, are truer than other opinions, such as the unsolicited opinions of amateur opinionators and independent (unemployed) journalists.

In fact, the more credulous persons among us tend to believe that the opinions of professional journalists who work for major daily newspapers are the truest of all opinions simply because their authors went to journalism school and are closely associated with whatever passes for news in their newspapers. Politicians know that very well, hence the statements of journalists and editors praising them and blaming their opponents appear once again, as television advertisements, as if the rehashed opinions were the gospel truth. Of course their opponents manage to find somewhat contrary statements made by other journalists and editors, and those statements are advertised again, this time on television, accordingly. Nobody seems to notice the absurdity of the contradictory broadcasts, or that many of the opinions are quoted out of context, or that the original authors of those opinions are often close-minded professional nitwits and press putas.

Regardless of their opposing views, press putas have much in common: they will say almost anything, no matter how absurd, to turn a buck, and they are highly unlikely to bite the invisible hand that feeds them. The high opinion that press putas hold of themselves in the United States, where the mythical free or liberal press supposedly runs rampant in its search and representation of the truth about everything, is highly amusing to their critics. Sadly, the absurd arrogance of press putas has had tragic results throughout the world. Most ridiculous of all are those professional journalists who fancy themselves as liberals and do not realize that their subornation has rendered them wolves in sheep clothing. Many of them believe they are bending over backwards to shape the L-word when in fact they are bending over their desks at the pleasure of their masters.

For example, take the sundry absurdities emitted by Andres Oppenheimer in Sunday's (11/28/04) Oppenheimer Report for the Miami Herald:

Mr. Oppenheimer reported that something interesting happened at the Committee to Protect Journalists' annual fundraiser for embattled journalists in Latin America. He encountered the opinion that the press in the United States is not a free as its patriots might imagine it to be: 'Press-freedom groups focus on new problem country' reads the title of his "report." Since the United States is the "problem country", we might suspect that our so-called "independent" journalists are not as independent as liberal-minded people would like them to be - maybe they are in fact, perhaps unwittingly, press putas. To be fair, journalists in "repressive" countries reported more of the truth about the monstrous behavior of the Bush administration, including the crimes against humanity, and gave their sincere, often lowly paid opinions about that behavior. The reports and opinions were sometimes misinformed and mistaken, but they had a much greater moral worth and ethical integrity than those written by well paid press putas for the U.S. jingo press.

Mr. Oppenheimer reported that John Carroll, editor of the Los Angeles Times, was given the "biggest applause" by the "crowd of 850 top U.S. editors from the biggest media organization gathered at New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel last week for the black-tie dinner to honor the most courageous journalists." He did not report the cost of the affair, or how much money if any was courageously pledged to support courageous journalists who are risking life and limb to dig up the facts that they might be published as a sort of homeopathic preventative medicine before the bad news, which is so profitable to the military-industrial machine and its propaganda organs, gets even worse. Some of the money raised by the Gang of 850 should be used to hire truly independent journalists at the editors' own newspapers.

Mr. Carroll complained about the threats facing U.S. journalists, and said, "It is tribal in the sense that we listen, like primitive people around a campfire, to [foreign journalists'] stories that give us inspiration." The voice of journalists are being smothered by big corporations, claimed Mr. Carroll. We have no indication from Mr. Oppenheimer that Mr. Carroll resigned his position in protest or used his power over the editorial pages to attack his employers with a weekly column - it appears that press ethics are broad enough to let press freedoms slide, especially with all that money left on the dresser.

Tony Ridder, chairman of one of the big media corporations, Knight Ridder, owner of the Miami Herald, condemned judicial infringement on press freedoms, wrote Mr. Oppenheimer. We recall that Knight Ridder, for the sake of profit, cut back on the quality of the reportorial product at the Herald. That reduction in quality, together with the political repression of its journalists by the right-wing Cuban exiles who ran the paper and Miami with the help of Bush family members, caused the voluntary exile of several of its best journalists - they fled to more liberal precincts.

Mr. Oppenheimer then notes the latest infringements on the press, those of the Bush administration, incidental to its second war on Iraq and its world war on terror. Of course we know that the press wildly supported the Bush rush to war and its infringement of civil rights, almost to the last publisher and editor, until the truth could no longer be voluntarily suppressed because the truth gave the lie to it after courageous foreign publishers, even in countries which do not enjoy America's famed press freedoms, willingly published the bad news. Back at the American ranch, patriotic leaders and citizens who voted for the neoconservative thugs were unwilling to hear from America's own independent journalists, most of whom were, of course, unemployed because they did not suit the current "market needs" of the media.

And now, Mr. Oppenheimer, in his Sunday article under the rubric, 'Reform Starts at Home', dares to confess that, "It's no wonder that, in my travels through Latin America, I often meet well-educated people who are convinced there is government censorship in the United States. Much of their belief stems from the credulous U.S. coverage of last year's U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the U.S. media's continuing failure to show the images of the Iraqi war casualties that are being seen on television worldwide. Granted, it is absurd to compare the United States with Venezuela, where last wee the government-controlled Congress adopted a law demanding 'socially responsible' - meaning pro-government - programming. Or Cuba, where there are no opposition media...."

Now that the crap has hit the fan, now that the media must co-opt the opposition and even be the opposition until the next tragedy occurs because of its negligent reporting, analysis and opinionating, the Oppenheimer "Report" (as if it were news instead of opinionated propaganda) is palatable enough for publication. And, on the whole, independent journalists might applaud the author's opinions despite the tardiness of his L-position. Press putas today remind us of those momentum-playing stockbrokers and economic analysts who advise us to buy when the trend is up, and to sell when the trend is down, and they earn six-figures and more for their sagacity, and the disasters after the tops and bottoms are soon forgiven because the money was already made by the winners anyway, and nobody likes losers very much.

Of course the jingo U.S. press did not dig up the facts, did not listen to the "traitors" and their "seditious libel" when it was time to profit on massive violence. But we forgive them now that they are taking the liars to task. Still, the press is literally filled with self-righteous absurdities; in general, the latent black or white, holier-than-thou, intolerance-for-ambiguity voice of the highly paid press putas behind it.

Contrary to Mr. Oppenheimer's belief, it is not absurd to compare journalism in the United States with journalism in Venezuela and Cuba. The differences are in shades, and not in either/or, black/white terms.

What is indeed absurd is the fact that censorship is indeed being practiced daily in the United States, and not at gunpoint. The U.S. style of censorship is voluntary self-censorship. The government of the United States, which identifies with big money, does not need to imprison, torture and murder dissident journalists. Most journalists in this great nation of ours will be glad if not obliged to cower for money, to crawl on their literary knees for the Almighty Dollar, even though their cowering eventually weakens their country and will eventually bring disaster to their readers. Big business is the business of the United States government, Money is its god, and its Big Puta simply ignores truly independent journalists; the chances of them getting heard by many people are slim short of some reportable action such as a terrorist attack:

'Deranged Independent Journalist fires mortar at Press Corps! His absurd manifesto found on the Internet.'

It is no wonder that U.S. journalist clubs gather together to pay tribute to courageous journalists in other countries and to present token resistance to authoritarian government and corporate repression in their own country. Most independent journalists would be quite happy to censor themselves and to submit to editorial censoring just to get a writing job and keep it .The same may be said of many dissident intellectuals. The fact that fewer and fewer authorities recognize that fact, that almost everyone has a price, is also absurd and shall eventually work to the ruin of authority. As absurd as it might seem, some writers are so desperate to see themselves in print that they will perform all sorts of acts for nothing.

Therefore live and learn, from the United States, El Commandante, that the methodical physical repression of journalists is obsolete and counter-productive. Hire the whores, flatter the sluts, shake your head and give a smile and a bit of fatherly advice to the rest. History teaches us that torture is ineffective on the whole, and that prison is a great place to write about liberty and to perchance incite another revolution of the left or right.

Mr. Oppenheimer might ask, What else is absurd? It is absurd that his column is published by the Herald, but I am told that I cannot have a column because my work does not suit the "market needs" of the brown-nosed newspaper. Less personally, it is truly absurd that there is no real opposition to the U.S. press conglomerates who have, in the name of the Idol Competition who is god of the "free markets", driven out competitors, that there be only one major daily newspaper in many cities, owned by chains whose love of large quantities of money surpasses by far the love of quality, not to mention the truth about any crucial subject, such as their domination of the media and the need for liberal government intervention to break up their oligopoly and to fund real competition.

It is hypocritical if not absurd to hear the Gang of 850 Top U.S. Editors praise and talk about funding courageous persecuted journalists while the editors, sporting black phallic symbols around their necks, cringe around their luxurious campfire. In my opinion it is rather absurd that the press, including Knight Ridder, places, in the name of "market need", politics and profits before the truth. Tom Fiedler, Executive Editor of the Miami Herald, recently told me that good thinking and writing is secondary to meeting the "market needs" of its readers, including ethnic and racial factors. We can see from his newspaper among other chain papers that the local needs serve and are subservient to the national and international needs of the forces of darkness of corporate board tribalism. The Gang of 850 Top U.S. Editors serve, first of all, the "market need" of the Fortune 500 who control the "free" market equated with "democracy."

Mr. Oppenheimer's highly educated remark about the opinion of "highly educated" people in Latin America - just imagine that - was condescending, denigrating, and supercilious. How absurd it is that highly educated people think they have some sort of monopoly on the truth. And it is exceedingly absurd that credentialed credulity, stupidity cultivated by degrees rising to the highest powers, dominates our supposedly meritorious, republican democracy. It is even more absurd that a democratic people does not stand up to such nonsense; instead, they condone it, vote for it, buy it hook line and sinker - people are ultimately responsible for the papers they buy as well as the leaders they elect.

Anything else? Yes. Once upon a time it was said that the press should be free because the truth will eventually crowd out the lies. It is awfully absurd that the reverse is true in the United States, that the irrational right-wing authoritarians have managed to crowd out reason and truth and replace it with infinite reams of their primitive prejudices.

Equally absurd is the tendency of U.S. press putas to disparage the effort of foreign governments to censor propaganda designed to overthrow their state, propaganda often sponsored by the United States, in the holy name of regime change for the sake of its proprietary notions of democracy and free markets to take over and dominate. Such propaganda has often been accompanied by terrorism, provoked and even carried out by the United States.

Mr. Oppenheimer's statement about Venezuela's "government-controlled" Congress, and his claim that Venezuela's "socially responsible" new press law passed by its Congress is "pro-government programming", is deliberately misleading if not absurd. The Chavez party has a majority in the Venezuela's Congress. The Bush party has a majority in the U.S. Congress. Maybe the members of both congresses should get together, compare notes, engage in dialogue, sell their mothers to each other, or whatever. Maybe the U.S. Congress should stop funding the "non-partisan" (lol) National Endowment of Democracy, the CIA surrogate used to fund "democratic" parties interested in the overthrow of regimes or particular politicians it does not like. U.S. press putas insist that any democratic action taken not to their master's liking is undemocratic. No matter that the representatives of the Venezuelan assembly were elected. Never mind that President Chavez was elected twice over - once by referendum. Forget that the elections were declared valid by independent observers. Surely they must have been rigged, because the only way of doing things correctly is the American Way.

It is the American Way to conduct forty years of terrorism against Cuba, for instance, and expect Fidel Castro to be nice to dissenters. And this while the U.S. is violating the civil and human rights of 550 political detainees at Guantanamo, Cuba, the largest number of political detainees held without due process in the Western Hemisphere. U.S. District Court Judge Joyce Hens Green recently asked Brian Boyle, a Justice Department lawyer, if a "little old lady in Switzerland" who unwittingly gave money to the wrong charity could wind of in Guantanamo. Yes, replied the U.S. lawyer, for the military can detain anyone it thinks is supporting terrorism, and the Federal courts should not get in the way. The U.S. Justice Department is relying on the "decisionist" notions of jurisprudentia developed by one of the "neoconservative" fathers in Germany, Carl Schmitt - the jurist who provided the extra-legal justification for Hitler's Blood Purge and seizure of power - Carl Schmitt's protege was Leo Strauss.

As for Cuba proper, the Cuban government is presently holding 300 political detainees in its prisons, of which 80 are defined by Amnesty International as peaceful "prisoners of conscience." And now we have just received the good news that 3 of 75 Cuban dissenters, imprisoned on charges of collaborating with the U.S. to overthrow the Castro regime, have been released for health reasons, and hopefully others will be released any day. The Miami Herald has focused most of its coverage of this event on Paul Rivero, because "Rivero has long been one of the most respected dissidents... because he is one of the few with professional journalism experience...." (emphasis added). Castro will let Mr. Rivero stay in Cuba if he does not speak out against the government. Mr. Rivero said he might stay in Cuba to see if he "can do regular journalism, like I was doing. If I can do my work, I have no reason to leave." Mr. Rivero's regular job before forming his own agency was Moscow correspondent for the communist state-owned paper Prensa Latina. I believe he would be happier in the United States, perhaps writing anti-Castro propaganda for U.S. media.

If one is interesting in getting and keeping his job as a journalist in the U.S., he must be willing to sell at least part of his conscience, that he might come down on the "right" side with his reporting, analyses, and opinions. Of course if that practice is engaged in elsewhere by parties unloved by his bosses, it must be denounced. The U.S. funded support of the overthrow of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Castro's friend, failed even though private media told only one side of the story - one broadcaster ran cooking shows instead of covering the criminal coup against the elected leader. Chavez got the new media law passed in Congress, where, as we have noted, he has a margin. The law is purportedly designed to curb displays of violence and sexually explicit material. For instance, said one opponent, the 9/11 tragedy could not be shown on television - it would have to be described in print. No doubt the terrorists, who depend on the widespread broadcasting of the violent acts, are opposed to all such laws! All laws are "political" and depend on governments for enforcement. The new media law, like any other law anywhere, may be selectively applied pursuant to the abuse of the principles of "prosecutorial discretion." All of the law's opponents rightly believe that it may be used against them for political reasons. Still, the law does have certain features that American's might like if the bill hand not been written by accursed "socialists."

However that might be, Mr. Oppenheimer says that the United States must "lead in fighting these threats...." The first story of Knight Ridder's violent series on the Bush War on Iraq II appeared on the front page of the Miami Herald on the very Sunday of the Oppenheimer Report which I have so disdainfully criticized. I quote from the story because I overheard teenagers quoting its violent sections.

Before his men left the forward operating base near Fallujah that morning, the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Pete Newell, gathered them in a circle:

"This is as pure a fight of good versus evil as we will probably face in our lifetime," he said.

"You know we're going to destroy this town," said Corporal Travis Barretto, 22.

"I hope so," replied a soldier sitting next to him.

"Kill those bastards! Kill the m...........s!" someone screamed in the darkness.