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School, city, county, and university
libraries--they are maybe the best things ever invented by humansocieties.
Cave paintings, hieroglyphics, alphabets, the printing press,
folk knowledge, learning to read and write--all such things
have allowedhuman beings to better their lot, to dominate the
entire Planet Earth, and even to leave small dents, tracks, and
pits everywhere in the universe.
Our collective knowledge,
shared knowledge, cumulative cooperation, and now our global
electronic communication/information-sharing, ensure a seemingly
endless evolution of human control and development. We can do
almost anything that we used to relegate "to the Gods"--we
can communicate to anywhere, almost instantly, peer into any
corner of our planet, live, or with only seconds of delay.
But also, now, we can sway,
control, corrupt entire nations of people, or set lofty global
values, goals, and acts, with the punching of a few keys. We
can negate justice, dodge blame, instill guilt, "fix"
elections, steal vast sums of money, kill people, and even recruit
suicide bombers and assassins, just sitting at a keyboard, at
"Anywhere," Earth.
We can as easily do only an
incredible array of "good things," for ourselves and
other people, or for all living things, and this earthly habitat
from which we sprung. It is, sometimes, hard to imagine how Heaven
could be any better than some things we have already created
for ourselves. How can you improve on being full of a good meal,
sitting on a beautiful mountain ridge, watching a beautiful sunset,
and listening to the coyotes howling or the owls hooting? Yeah,
I know--a girl.
It is time for us to "get
real," to assess what we have, and where we are going--and
to put the mass media back into our control. The design
of libraries has allowed us to be evermore productive, has guided
our use of knowledge, and for the most part, has created
the advancement of "good" knowledge for good things,
far and wide. The structure of the library system has ensured
the featuring and favoring of specific knowledge, beneficial
information, and the use thereof. Libraries are not keyed to
"profits," or "business," or corporate takeovers,
or "out-sourcing," or buy-outs, or hostile "takeovers,"
or enormous CEO pay-offs. They are run quietly, professionally,
fairly, intelligently, usefully by us, by governments, by communities,
by states, by our friends and relatives. And for damn good reason.
Think, for a moment, what our
libraries would be like if we ran them for profits, or privatized
them. Higher profits, out-sourcing, hostile takeovers, buy low
and sell high, would all quickly alter what libraries are, and
would eventually destroy our culture, governments, and all
of the great things we have created for ourselves. A few, super-rich
individuals, maybe, would horde and safeguard (for themselves)
what we now hold as precious, and ours. But most of our wonderful
life would soon be gone.
Well, look around. That is
exactly what we have allowed the global mass media to do. And
just guess where your kids are going, more and more, for their
information and knowledge. Television, radio, the airwaves, belong
to us, and should be managed BY US in the ways that the libraries
still are run, designed, and staffed.
Sure, libraries for profit
could be extremely profitable, but they would be filled to the
brim with skin magazines, pornography, crime, tasteless humor,
the exotic and the sensational, the frightening, the corrupting,
the "daily tripe" of commercial TV, and on andon.
And that's where the bears
come in. I consider that all of the above is pertinent to wildlife
media. All the ills and faults of the mainstream mass media,
and the globalization of the media, and the massive profits of
the mass media, rule, one way or the other in wildlife media,
and it is getting worse rather than better.
In my view, Discovery/Animal
Planet people are among the most damaging thing on earth, to
the bears and to countless other species. People of the Crocodile
Hunter ilk are worse than the most bloodthirsty slob hunters,
the most blatant real estate exploiters. Andtheir power is keyed
directly to the lack of professionalism, talent, public codes
and laws, public ownership, that we feature in the structure
of our libraries. And they make lots of money under the
guise of caring for wildlife.
Doesn't anyone, anymore,
understand that kids are watching TV? They, and their parents, go more and more to
the TV set, and less and less to libraries, for their information,
their values, their understandings of government, and their guidelines
for voting. Even in their supporting ads, they compel waste,
promote greed, stifle learning, corrupt public values and perceptions.
Mainstream mass media keeps
hidden the ways of "control," and makes people into
slaves of "the system." Anymore, God is the corporation,
the money. And all of that teaches us not to care, not to cooperate
with our knowledge. The real news is neglected for the more profitable
controlled news, the irrelevant, the human interest, the bizarre,
and makes people happy to be brain dead, all to the detriment
of furthering Mankind, and wounding our Earth.
Almost 30 years ago I identified
this problem as of perhaps more importance to wildlife
than all of the federal/state/provincial wildlife management,
wildlife research; and maybe more important even than all of
the wildlife preserves, parks, wildernesses, etc. put together.
Why? Because always, public, political bureaucratic, government
agencies, etc. perceptions, are formed more and more by
the mass media, and nowadays, by the global mass media, the internet,
and all of the replications and adaptations of the electronic
media.
People, more and more, are
"learning" about nature, wildlife, wildland values,
"zoology," wildlife management, wilderness, the evolution
of species from TV--all of which is Man-made, and almost all
of which is made for profit, not for being true or helpful
to wildlife. That is why I created the International Wildlife
Film Festival, 28 years ago this May. Most biologists, I regret
to say, still don't understand the urgency of the concept
and the need.
Face it people, about 90% of
all human beings are almost totally oriented to "people
things," to what other people are doing, and to human-created
things--music, fiction of every sort, religion, political schemes,
threats and made-up dangers, video games. Hardly anyone really
cares about, is informed about, or is curious about wild things,
Nature, climatic change, grizzly bears. Or if they care at all
it is in a warped, screwed up way, like the infamous "Grizzly
Man" Timothy Treadwell, now becoming (thanks to Hollywood)
a dead "bear Icon," teaching millions of people wrong
and harmful things about bears. Two bears and an innocent girl
were killed directly by his actions, and over time, perhaps
50-100 bears will be killed by people remembering how he and
that poor girl were killed. "Shoot first," just in
case. Shoot first, bears are killers, Shoot first, for revenge.
Who made him an icon? Who made
him a powerful, negative force? Who made him into a pseudo-expert,
a self-styled hero of the bears? And who is continuing to promote
his idiot acts with bears, the charismatic charm he stole from
the bears, the blood and gore of three coroner interviews, and
his silly, self-styled role as a protector of the bears?
Well, it was and is the mass
media, Hollywood people "in it" for the money. But
also, he was created by incompetent National Park supervision,
agencies that promote "up close" viewing and photography,
and bear biologists who promote bear petting, walking with bears,
and the up close exciting contacts with bears. They all
are stealing from the bears, taking their wildness, for glory
and (one way or the other) for profit. Even those biologists
who won't speak out, don't try to lean about what really matters,
are partly "to blame."
The story goes on, the plot
thickens, more people will get rich at the expense of the bears,
and more bears will be harmed by misguided, poorly informed,
but well-intentioned people. Most recently, the Discovery Channel
ran a version of "the Treadwell film" which included
extensive comment and obsequious justification, by a panel of
people who quite obviously know nothing about bears. Rather,
they highlighted "the adrenaline rush," becoming addicted
to the thrill of being too close, the "rock star status"
he attained from his playing with the bears, his silliness making
him "on a great mission," and his having "great
fun" being with the bears. Obviously, the Grizzly People
group, the filmmaker, and Discover Channel, were ALL trying to
put a good spin on the film, the story, for the sake of more
money--and to hell with the bears. Well, I have lots of problems
with that.
The ultimate question is, what
to do? You can't really fight Hollywood--they can throw millions
of dollars at you, to counter whatever you do or say. And for
the most part, they make even more money if you cause bad publicity,
create debate. They win no matter what, and the bears will lose
no matter what. Until the whole system changes--and we (the public)
take back ownership of the airwaves from the profiteers, and
wildlife biologists exert research, management, law enforcement
authority over the poaching and "market hunting" by
the mass media-we can only do what small things we can do, in
a sea of greedy and exploitive wildlife media. For starters,
maybe, scream "more grizzly bear habitat and habitat protection,"
and ignore almost everything else. Find, buy, read, watch, promote
the good books and videos on wildlife, and give copies to kids
and schools, and libraries.
Dr. Charles Jonkel is the president of the Great
Bear Foundation in Missoula and the recipient of the Denver
Zoological Foundation's Conservationist of the Year in 2005.
He is known to be on the forefront of bear biology.
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.
