Imperium Watch grew out of our idea that an alternative paper evolves in relation to events and to its readers' needs. The Advocate began as a local paper, giving its readers a voice for their issues. The Vietnam War ended two years later, and through the 1970s, '80s and early '90s, the major influences on Valley life were local. If people's tax money was misused or their water polluted, it was usually caused by skullduggery in their home towns or Boston.
Then came the first intimations of global warming, and soon afterward—in 2000—the White House was taken over by the jackbooted soldiers of the New American Century. The towers went down, nearly taking the fabric of our civil rights with them. We invaded Iraq; thousands of Americans and Iraqis died; the cost set us up for a catastrophic deficit; and our neighbors—reservists who never expected to fight overseas—were ordered to Iraq along with the volunteer army.
As the next election loomed, longtime New Haven Advocate writers Paul and Carole Bass started up a weekly column, Ejection 2004, jettisoning the objective reporter stance and crying, Get these people out of the White House.
Later the Valley paper continued Ejection 2004 under the title Imperium Watch because so much of what was affecting our readers was emanating from Washington. Reductions in funding for services, the dismantling of environmental regulations, the stepped-up surveillance of U.S. citizens, the tension of wondering if a loved one would be sent to the Middle East, credit card usury, the lending crisis: all the stories behind the stories were national.
We've seldom had the resources to do on-scene reporting on national and international issues. But much of what our readers need to know is aired less often in mainstream papers than on blogs, in activist and industry publications or in foreign news outlets that are not widely read by Americans. Relaying that information is a service.
This column was a way of responding to post-9/11 reality. In the best of all possible worlds, the public will demand political changes that will enable us to cancel it as a regular feature, and devote even more staff time to local reporting.
