[Craig Jacobson]

craiggy@ozemail.com.au wrote:

> The US goes out of its way to protect many strategic industries from 
> outside influence: farming, steel manafacturing, high tech, and 
> military research and production.  
>
We do have unfair protection for farming and steel.  Certainly not for 
high tech - if that were the case, the industry could not possibly have 
posted the losses and drop in market value it has.  Defense - of course 
that's protected - and this one I feel no need to justify this one.

> Japan became industrialised and wealthy on the back of protectionism.  

And because of too much controls in their economic system, they've been 
in the longest recession of any free country post-WWII.

> My brother studies in NYC, and he comes from Melbourne and is 
> Australian. He wrote the message below. He feels extremely let down by 
> the US media in its coverage of the Bali bombings... please forward 
> on, so some people get the real news.

Unfortunately, way too many Americans make the choice of watching "news" 
programs that have denigrated to sensationalist entertainment.  That 
said, Fox News certainly had extensive coverage of Bali, as did the New 
York Times, which for a few days had entire pages on Bali.  The Wall 
Street Journal had a lead editorial and numerous articles and op-ed 
pieces on Bali.  So, the news is available to those who want to see it.  
That unfortunately doesn't excuse the fact that too many Americans 
couldn't find Indonesia on a map if their life depended on it. Believe 
me, many of us read about it, and are tremendously saddened.

> It seems to me the US media is scary beast indeed, hell bent on 
> serving US elite business/power interests:

The US media (with a few exceptions) serves one interest:  profits.  
Actually, in their need to stir up controversy, their coverage is more 
often detrimental to government and business.  So, they are scary, but 
for very different reasons.

> The amount of time the US spends on justifying an attack on a 3rd 
> world country in its blind defence of Israel is astounding.

It is unfortunate you had to insert this drivel into an intelligent 
discourse.  I'm not touching the Middle East on this list, but suffice 
it to say you know not of what you speak.  (This is not to deny the 
existence of legitimate opposing positions.)

> At least the US make good movies about all their disasters I suppose.....

More irony.  I think American movies generally suck.  I've seen many 
more interesting movies from Europe, Oz, Japan, China, etc.

You may not like all of the choices people in your society make as far 
as where to buy coffee and hamburgers, but I don't accept your 
insinuation that American power is behind the current popularity in Oz 
of rap music and grunge (the items PG mentioned).  I don't like American 
society's choices of many things - particularly news - but I accept it 
as part of living in a free society.

Beets the heck out of living someplace like China, where you don't have 
the option to seek out alternate sources of news.