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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
The reason why the right is so much more effective at this sort of thing then we are is they have entire media outlets to spew their message. If a repulbican doesn't follow the party line in all things, they face the wrath of Rush and co. Democrats don't have media figures they are accountable to. As a result, they can afford to ignore the base and are often cowtowed by right wing media. This puts a lot more of the work on us individual voters. It is not enough to demand our leadrs to do their jobs, we must also demand a REAL liberal media that holds those in power accountrable the way the right does.
Obama niavely beleives that if he makes enough concessions that some republicans will come around. As long as the right has it's own unaccountable media, that will never happen. Even if a republican wanted to, they would be torn apart by a rabid base that allows no dissent. Spurred on by this right wing media. Seems to me we must also write to our media outlets and demand they do their jobs again. This means stop being cowed by the "bias" label and confront it.
And now I’m energized again with hope. And a burning desire to help my well-intentioned (albeit criminally-disordered, lying, addicted) President. After I email New President, I am going to contact every corporate leader and Wall Street entrepreneur I can and I will implore them – implore in the strongest language! – to put aside their misguided concerns with money, status, deal-making and power and to start thinking of the needs of all Americans. Then I shall contact the heads of pharmaceutical corporations, medical insurance providers and the AMA, and insist that they do the right thing as well. I will not neglect to contact each and every member of Congress to insist – insist! – that they forthwith reverse course on the War on Drugs, Iraq, detention, accountability for war crimes, Afghanistan, and the drone killings in Pakistan. I intend also to contact the heads of major media outlets to rather bluntly make them aware that until they adopt a more Greenwaldian model of journalistic courage and truth-telling, they are simply not meeting their obligations to Americans and to the Open Society. Perhaps they simply do not understand this!
This is going to be great.
Always enjoy your stuff but please look up the word kowtow.
We just finished having a president that did whatever he wanted with a Congress who was either to inept and too infatuated with corporate America.
Congress was unable to stop Bush on misguided war, eves-dropping, torture, and overspending to the nth degree.
Now you say it's our job to help them out??!!
Neither the president or Congress listen until about 6 month before any election. Until we have true structural reform of the federal government in a meaningful way, writing letter and email will only get you one thing:
A generic automated response with assurances that they are doing everything humanly possible. And yet, they're accomplishing nothing.
The only real hope is constitutional convention or serious reform on how we pick those individuals who represent us and make legislation.
http://voxvocisrespublica.blogspot.com/
Gee the Republicans manage to fight tooth and nail and not compromise at all on anything they believe in and they have, at most, 25% of Americans behind them.
In polls 70% of Americans expressed support for government run health care, yet single payer is, for the Democrats, "off the table."
Sorry Mr. Reich the Democrats are a spineless lot-in bed with the very corporations that run both parties.
I have done the letters, email, phone calls, and even personal visits to the offices of my Democrat "representatives." And we still went to war with their approval. After decades of voting for Democrats I give up. They will do what they decide to do-whether I like it or not. And I will write in ":none of the above" on my future ballots.
Selfish, self-centered lazy halfwits.
Sorry, but that's the reality. We are going to reap what we sow.
If liberals want all these fine things, the course is simple: organize 50 million workers who will go out on strike and shut down the profit flow until we have these things (or face a fascist reaction). If progressives can't organize the working class then it is we who are without a social function, not the conservatives or the politicians. Democracy isn't a game, it is a way to peaceably settle disputes between organized social forces. There is only one organized social force of any size in the US today, and that is the corporatocracy. They have sufficiently central coordination and highly organized fractions in every arena of American life. We have nothing but a sadly reified faith in "democracy," our cherished opinions, and some occasional good luck handed to us by a sudden extreme manifestation of our exploitation and subjugation.
D'oh! And I learned to read faster then most of the people in my class! I ought to know better!
...seeming reversals on eavesdropping and torture, and squishiness on a public option for healthcare.
Nothing "seeming" about it Mr. Reich. He is continuing the Bush approach and his "squishiness" is a lack of backbone. I voted for him and I had great hope for Obama. I hoped that he would come in to office and keep his campaign promises and fight hard for "change we can believe in." I helped give him a Democrat majority to accomplish his stated goals. And it's been one betrayal after another.
Look at my union brothers and sisters in the auto industry (got billions) who have been compelled to make so many concessions while the bankers (got trillions) are back in business making money hand over fist with Goldman Sachs having a record year for profits in 2009.
Mark my words: Obama will betray us on health care. And for me, his presidency will be over. And my support for the Democrats, growing weaker by the day, will be over. Who ya gonna vote for-a Republican? A friend asked me. No, I'll simply write in none of the above. That way when a future Democrat fucks me at least I didn't put him/her in office.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
