Corporations own every major newspaper, every TV and radio station, and every major media outlet in America. They offer "objective journalism," but not because feigning impartiality is somehow "ethical." It's simply the strategy that offends the fewest advertisers, draws the largest audience, and makes the most profit.
There's nothing wrong with making an honest profit, but profit is not the motive here. No corporation owns Unknown News, and we're not doing this to turn a profit, so we don't pretend to be "impartial and objective journalists."
We're Helen & Harry Highwater. We're real human beings, not a 'network' or newspaper. We care, so we have some opinions.
We appreciate the Bill of Rights, and other great works of fiction. We have no patience for the status quo of bipartisan duplicity, hypocrisy, graft, and glad-handing.
We are disgusted with the Democratic and Republican parties, whose policies and politicians are responsible for most of America's problems (and more and more of the world's). We do not believe these thoroughly corrupt parties, policies, and politicians offer any serious solutions to the problems they have created.
What do we believe?
We believe in liberty and justice for all, so of course, we oppose many US government policies. This doesn't mean we're anti-American, redneck scum, pinko commies, militia members, or terrorist-sympathizers. It means we believe in freedom, as more than merely a cliché.
We believe you have the right to live your own life as you choose, and others have the equal right to live their lives as they choose. It's not complicated.
We believe freedom leads to peace, progress, and prosperity, while its opposite — oppression — leads to war, terrorism, poverty, and misery.
We believe it's preposterously stupid to hate people because of their appearance, their race or nationality, their religion or lack of religion, how they have sex with other consenting adults, etc. There are far more apropos reasons to hate most people.
We believe in questioning ourselves, our assumptions, each other — and we especially believe in questioning authority (the more authority, the more questions). We believe obedience is a fine quality in dogs and young children in public places, but not in adults.
Like America's right-wingers, we believe in individual responsibility,hard work to get ahead, and stern punishment for serious crimes. We believe big government should not be blindly trusted.
But unlike most right-wing leaders, we mean it.
Like America's left-wingers, we believe in equal treatment under law, war as a last (not first) resort, and sensible stewardship of natural resources. We believe big business should not be blindly trusted.
But unlike most left-wing leaders, we mean it.
Like libertarians, we believe it's wrong and reprehensible to arrest people for what they think, believe, look like, wear, eat, smoke, drink, inhale, inject, or otherwise do to themselves.
But unlike many libertarians, we're not obsessed with the gold standard, we don't believe incorporation is humanity's highest achievement, and we don't believe everything in life comes down to dollars and cents. We've read and enjoyed Ayn Rand's novels, but we understand that they're works of fiction.
We're skeptical, and we're sick of so-called 'journalists' who aren't skeptical at all.
A reader asks, what are our solutions? We propose no solutions except common sense, which is never common. We like the principles of democracy, and the ideals broadly described as 'American'. The US Constitution is a fine and workable framework for solutions, when it's actually read and thoughtfully understood by intelligent statesmen and women. So, no manifestos from us. We don't dream that big, and if there's one thing the world doesn't need it's yet another manifesto.
Our suggestion is: think. A fact-based instead of faith-based approach leads to solutions for most of the recurring issues of our time, from abortion to global climate change, pollution to universal health care, careful but real regulation of industry and economy, hunger, war, terror, human rights for humans not for corporations, science not religious doctrine in public schools, equal protection and prosecution under law, etc. Approach problems without glorifying stupidity, without demonizing intelligence, and aswers usually come into focus.
These pages are published by Harry and Helen Highwater, happily married low-income nom de plumes and rabble-rousers from Madison, Wisconsin (with a few friends scattered around the world helping out).
Unknown News features news from mainstream professional journalistic sources, or (rarely) from independent sources whom we know and trust without reservation. We do not cover "news" about flying saucers, FreeMasons, or who shot JFK.
We try to spotlight news that hasn't gotten enough (or appropriate) attention in American media, along with our opinions and yours.
We bang our keyboards against the wall, because it doesn't hurt as much as banging our heads.
Links in red are not safe for work, and links in pink include audio and/or video.
We hold these truths to be self-evident
•Freedom is a good idea, and the fundamental human right.
•Prohibiting activities that offend you or worry you is not "freedom." Having Congress or courts decide whether, why, and how consenting adults may have sex is not "freedom." Forcing other people to pay, obey, or even acknowledge your god is not freedom.
•Freedom is deciding such things for yourself (everyone seems to understand this intuitively) and letting other people decide for themselves (a concept some people have a very hard time with).
•A lot of people are opposed to freedom, but never their own — just everyone else's.
•All people should be free, unless convicted of a crime.
•People suspected of a crime deserve the presumption of innocence, unless proven guilty in a fair trial.
•There's no crime if there's no victim. By any standard that respects freedom, it's not a "crime" to smoke a reefer or buy booze after 2AM.
• People who aren't US citizens, whose skin isn't white, whose God isn't Jesus, whose language isn't English, who don't have much money, and who might not even like Americans are still entitled to human rights. "Liberty and justice for all, with no exceptions."
•Trusting government to decide who lives and dies is a bad idea.
•Trusting corporations to do the right thing is another bad idea.
•Trusting governments or corporations at all is something best done in small doses.
•No government that opposes freedom deserves anyone's pledge of allegiance.
•No business that opposes freedom deserves any customers.
•Mass media, owned by enormous corporations and regulated by the government, is not a ferocious "watchdog" protecting the public's best interests.
•'The system' doesn't work, except for those working the system.
•All this is common sense, which should be much more common than it is.
•Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. By any standards but godhood, the United States government has very nearly absolute power.
•The chasm grows wider every day, between the lofty ideals America publicly professes and the actual behavior of its government and corporations.
•The events of September 11, 2001 didn't change any of this. Freedom still matters, more than everything else. What was right remains right, and what was wrong remains wrong.
•Now is the time to speak up. Tomorrow may be too late.
• If you generally agree, Unknown News welcomes your comments and participation.
We assume our readers are well-informed before they click here, so we focus on news that's generally unknown or under-reported. We're generally disinterested in such non-news as reports on what politicians might do, may do, or should do, and we don't usually mention the murders, kidnappings, house fires, auto wrecks, celebrity crap, wacky fluff, and other nonsense that's pushed real news right out of the newscasts.
Disclaimer for dummies: Our front page is free from nudity, but we make no promise on profanity. If your surfing is monitored this site might not be safe for work, and you may be shocked, offended, or in trouble with your boss. A link doesn't imply that we agree with every sentence and every sentiment on every site we link to. We use our noggins, and suggest you use yours.
We always welcome comments from readers, and we're especially interested in hearing and considering different perspectives, so please don't be shy. All we ask is that you conduct yourself sanely and civilly, so consider yourself invited to speak your mind. Our email address and other info is on our contact page.
Please don't email us unless you're sending an original communication that you're not sending to anyone or everyone else. If you add us to your mailing list or chat group without asking us first, or if you send "Dear friend" newsletters, or "link exchange" form letters, or if you send a press release every time you add a post to your blog, you're a spammer and we'll soon block your emails. Also, as a matter of security, we don't open emails from strangers which include attachments or have any kind of programming imbedded, and we recommend a similar policy for others. If you're sending us an email, please send it in plain text only.
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(Enormous and eternal thanksto Doug at mistersquirrel.net, for setting up our RSS feed.)
Our privacy policy has a page of its own, but the short and sweet version is: We're in favor of privacy. We make no effort to track or identify anything about visitors to our website. We never share, trade, or sell email addresses. We never send spam. We never send email, except in response to readers' queries. We never send (or open) attachments of any kind, and we delete un-opened any emails received with attachments.
Anything sent to Unknown News may be published. If you don't want it published, say so plainly. When we publish incoming emails, we edit out the sender's last name and email address — if we slip up (or if you want your full name and email address published) please let us know. Of course, if your email is unambiguously intended only to annoy, insult, or threaten us, we'll publish it with all the details and leave it on-line forever.
