Howard Pyle

Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away, Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air. You better watch out! There may be dogs about! I've looked over Jordan and I have seen; Things are not what they seem. What do you get for pretending the danger's not real? Meek and obedient you follow the leader Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel. What a surprise! A look of terminal shock in your eyes! Now things are really what they seem; No, this is no bad dream. — The first two stanzas of the song "Sheep", by Pink Floyd, from their 1977 album Animals. The First Slave Auction in New Amsterdam in 1655, an illustration by Howard Pyle (1853-1911), published in 1917 after his death. Slave or master, master or slave, it has been ever thus. Why listen to or read reports from corporate media outlets about what the comedian Michelle Wolf said at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday, April 28, when C-SPAN has the entire video of her speech available so that you can make up your own mind about it? Warning: foul language; also, self-congratulatory shills. There has never been an age when information was as freely available in relatively open societies such as ours, and yet people out of laziness, habit, or ideology continue to rely on corporate media to relay news to them. Corporate media has a bias, though, and ultimately that bias has less to do with left or right than it does with green, as in the color of American currency. The part of Ms. Wolf's remarks that the corporate media objects to most has nothing to do with what she says in the first sixteen minutes, largely about Supreme Leader, his incompetent administration, and the morally or legally corrupt officials in it, including press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, but about her criticisms of their ethically bankrupt empowering of this administration for the sake of lining their own pockets. There are reaction shots of stuffed shirt audience members either stony faced or sour pussed in disapproval throughout Ms. Wolf's remarks, but in the last three minutes, and especially the last minute, when she takes it up a notch, the reaction shots show media and administration types alike shooting daggers at her from their eyes. You know then she was speaking the truth, and that they weren't going to report that part of her speech if they could avoid it. Brit Floyd, a Pink Floyd tribute band, in an excellent performance of "Sheep" from 2015 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. But allowing lazy, dishonest media to get away with reporting like that are lazy, dishonest citizens who don't care about the truth. And it doesn't have to be that way. Criticizing the media is easy really, like shooting fish in a barrel. Who swallows the bait when they boost the weapons of mass destruction myth as reason for invading Iraq? Who goes along meekly when the corporate media repeats the lie from the powers that be that the banks and other financial institutions who nearly destroyed the economy in 2008, and did destroy the livelihood of millions of citizens, are too big to fail and require a bailout from the same people they screwed? Who listened and watched enraptured as the corporate media gave more coverage to a reality TV star presidential candidate in 2016 than any other candidate, regardless of substantive discussion of real issues? Who? — Ed. Who was born in a house full of pain? Who was trained not to spit in the fan? Who was told what to do by the man? Who was broken by trained personnel? Who was fitted with collar and chain? Who was given a pat on the back? Who was breaking away from the pack? Who was only a stranger at home? Who was ground down in the end? Who was found dead on the phone? Who was dragged down by the stone? — The last stanza of the song "Dogs", by Pink Floyd, from their 1977 album Animals.

Howard Pyle

Like Sheep to the Slaughter

Neither Here nor There