Finding the Truth

I was talking with a friend about finding the truth amidst the information, the misinformation, lies, biased truth—the general clutter and clatter of modern society. Seriously, how is someone supposed to work 8 hours a day, take care of their responsibilities and find the truth about a given subject of interest?

Take Venezuela for example. The friend was telling me she had been told by a friend how Chavez was crooked and corrupt, and she saw on TV an egotistical figure giving speeches and seeming self-important. She asked what I thought about Chavez, and I thought, what would be the use of telling her my side? She would have another (opposing) opinion on Chavez, but would that bring her closer to coming to her own truth? I suppose.

How does one determine the truth when it comes to Venezuela? A lot of the media paints Chavez as a loon dictator who wants to turn Venezuela into Cuba. There are certainly enough Venezuelans who feel this way who get plenty of airtime on the mainstream national and international media such that one might believe the Chavista camp and the anti-Chavista camp were roughly even. Of course this is not true. Chavez has the support of 80%? of the electorate in Venezuela, and his popularity has been increasing with every election. But the media reports are one-sided such that the minority seems larger than they are to the average media consumer.

One way by which to determine the truth then, is to make sure you are getting at least the two sides of the story (understanding that there are 140,000 sides to any story and 10-20 sides are necessary to come to a really well-informed opinion), and for Venezuela this would mean finding what the government is saying about the issues, such as the recent decision not to renew a TV license for one of the opposition broadcast stations. (The station plays up the issue as violating free speech, the first step toward dictatorship. The government says they had a quite visible hand in promoting and supporting the coup d'etat that happened in 2002) And getting the two sides of the story from the New York Times and the Washington Times doesn't count...

Evaluating the respective sides of the story must be done critically as well. Asking what are the sources, how credible are those sources, do they have any benefit in reporting/emphasizing certain facts above others? Follow the money and generally that is where most messages in the mainstream are coming from. Believe those messages if you wish.

Then it occurred to me while talking to my friend that one might also be able to detect the truth by looking for the art and the music. As much as Art is an expression of humanity, that will put art wherever freedom resides. Now of course the Powerful have tried for a long time to co-opt art to put it into their service; the Powerful co-opt anything and everything for their own purposes. They co-opt the spirit of the 60's to sell mobile phones, they co-opt the language of humanitarianism to invade countries and destroy people (bombing of the Balkans and of Iraq).

Art is another matter because of its origins and meaning. When they try to co-opt art and music they only create propaganda and corporate advertising. They can never co-opt true art because art is an expression of the soul of humanity and the soul is never in the service of power. Well, maybe one day. But not today....

Though they do play Clash songs for a car advertisements, and the anarchist rock group Chumbawamba sold a song to GM for use in a commercial (the band turned around and gave the money to a couple anti-corporate groups). While this does play on the nostalgia people have for when they were rebellious and young, the Powerful have to ensure a bit of safety; the art can't mean anything today but nostalgia-certainly not rebellion. There are standards to uphold!

In the case of Venezuela, the music is certainly on the side of Chavez; when I was down there for the World Social Forum, I saw just as much art being created (and yes, being sold by vendors on the street) as political workshops that were taking place there. I can only guess the reason there was so much art going on: Chavez represents change to a better world, and that's where the artists always gravitate to. If and when Chavez becomes a dictator, you'll see the music, the art, and the life quietly go out of Caracas.

This supports my theory that Fascists can't stand art. Maybe it's because they can't dance. I believe it's because fascists are far removed from their own humanity-repressed it so much-that they are scared of any kind of art that is an expression of the human soul. The case of Hitler can be explained by the fact that he was a fucking awful artist.