g8
Most links in this piece lead to blogs written in German. sorry for that, but that's what I've been reading ;)
Right now I am listening to Talking Heads - Fear of Music, the one record I bought in Barcelona. In a very interesting and small record store. Only selected rarities from the 60s to 80s, and a clerk who obviously had a story to tell to each of them.
He played me the record that I dug out because I realized it was produced by Brian Eno and David Byrne, and could not stop doing so, and marveling at it, long after I said I'd buy it ;)
I have been following the events around the G8 summit, not so much the summit itself because frankly I think you and I know those meetings are a farce. The most interesting parts are the small anecdotes, such as Dubya's sleep till 12 pm and Sarkozy's threat to leave the summit (exclusive German source only so far) if the USA would not at least try to sound serious while committing to nothing concerning carbon dioxide.
Anyway, as I said I have been following protests and events, and it showed in a scaring fashion that traditional media is failing in all possible ways. Blogs however, blogs proved once again to be quick, critical, inspiring.
Major German TV stations interrupted their programming to air the landing and departure of Air Force One, an event that offers rather limited insights, but did not with a single word in their main news broadcasts mention that the Police had to correct itself yesterday. Despite a prior denial they did have undercover agents inside the blockading crowds. Undercover agents may not be that surprising. But the rather blunt way of the police's spokesman who said something like "what I said yesterday was true then, what I say today is true now" would be enough to make one angry. The real question however is, how the undercover cops were spotted. Apparently they were identified within the crowd and then handed over to the police. Police thanked the peaceful demonstrators for protecting him.
But how did the cover blow up in the first place? People inside the crowd say there was a group of 4 or 5 hooded (that's illegal during demonstrations in Germany) young men who were unusually aggressive. The one guy who was identified wore a black hoodie with a large Slipknot backprint. Some witnesses wondered why somebody would wear something sticking out like that when it is known that the police is recording all the time ('real' black block people were plain black clothes). Witnesses accuse him of shouting aggressive paroles to encourage fights with the police, as well as throwing stones at the police (something that got people with no prior crime records 10 months without probation these days). In short: witnesses say the undercover policemen were agent provocateurs, something even system-critical people often dismissed as left-wing propaganda. I am not sure if the system itself will be able to shed light on this with committees and/or trials (if they ever happen). I doubt it. But the riots, the worst Germany has seen in years, from a week ago must been in a new light maybe. The German Secretary of the Interior has taken unprecedented, at least in democratic Germany, measures to 'assure' security around the summit. Measures that made the bourgeois majority in this country more critically aware of certain developments than ever. It is undisputed that a certain level of riots (why did protests remain peaceful after this one day of excess?) should be most welcome for the police to justify all this.
Apparently (I must look further into this, Wikipedia as sole source is rather unsatisfactory) there has been an agent provocateur connected to the founding of the most notorious terrorist part of West German history, the RAF. And apparently this has never been investigated to a satisfactory level.
Failure to report this undercover agent incident in the most watched news shows, at least so far, is not the only thing that lets one doubt about the traditional media. There are reports for example that a ten people strong tv broadcasting team (NDR) drank the provided champagne miles away from the protests and then produced reports based solely on police and news agency press releases, rather than actually going to the protesters and see for themselves (they say they were afraid the police would not let them).
Ah, news agencies. It seems quite a number of "journalists" define their job as transcribing news agency (like reuters or dpa) releases. And unlike bloggers, "real journalists" (the fear, the ignorance and consequent arrogance of a number of renowned German media people against blogs is reoccurring theme in German blogs I have been reading), do seldom correct mistakes quickly, if at all. And so it can take days until regular media corrects mistakes. Even such serious ones as mistakenly accusing someone who holds a Right Livelihood Award of demanding to "bring war upon this summit" when he really just wanted to make the Iraq War part of the g8 agenda. It took dpa three days to regret the error and "analyse" his speech. Bloggers needed a few hours. There is more, a latent hysteria like tv clips showing peaceful protesters while still talking of riots all the same, there a uncritically passed on police press releases, like the claim of 500 injured police men, 40 or so heavily, after last weekend's riots, when in fact no policeman had to spend a single night in a hospital, or the the news that police forces were "attacked" with tear gas when they were really just failed to avoid their own tear gas clouds, or that certain blockades were cleared because people within were allegedly starting to dress up for riots and prepare things to throw when no eye-witness confirms any such actions... there's more...
If you understand German, here's a couple of blogs on media, politics and the likes that I suggest: Spiegelfechter, Stefan Niggemeyer, Spreeblick (especially entries by Malte), Nachdenkseiten, Netzpolitik.
Bah. I am fed up with this.