Letters to the Editor
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We have collectively been droned into submission.
The population has too few tools to turn this coruption around. Voting cycles produce too slow a change and the unwillingness of the press to "inflame" the electorate to hold these bastards accountable causes gaping lapses in the election cycles to impart these changes. The NY Times decision to hold the story about spying on the population before the 2004 election so as to not push the electore one way or another, in effect, gave the election to Bush. Their foot dragging had the consequence desired by Bush and ,in effect, the Times became an unwitting 3rd party candidtae. The founding fathers were very worried that an uninformed population would be unable to make intelligent choices. Without all or as much information possible to render a clearly-thought-out vote, a clearly throughtout vote is impossible. Abu Graib is another example, Dan Rather's debackle etc.
The press needs to become involved again. They don't and shoouldn't have to take sides, just report the friggn news. Let the public make their own minds up. Just give us the god damned information for crying out loud! The politcal parties and their respective lemmings will create their own spin. The electorate can decide who's telling the truth. Just give us the information.
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Carolyn C: Yes, some of them are
An ad on Kos costs $9,000 a week, there are several running continuously. A million and a half is actually a conservative estimate of the ad revenue take.
But my bigger point is that all I hear from the left is give give give: give of our time, our skill, and our money. We give to candidates who fail us, and who in turn give the money to network TV, which despises us. We give to political organizations whose leaders feather their nests while asking people to volunteer their time.
I think Markos and Digby and Atrios and Glenn are all doing wonderful, important work, and they should be supported, but looking at some of the numbers, something is not right. Buzzflash looks to raise $25,000 to $30,00 a month, what kind of expenses could they possibly have to justify running a text-based site?
The left has a serious problem in this regard, and I wonder sometimes if,when we donate, we're not supporting people's ability to continue fighting the good fight so much as we're supporting a lifestyle.
Am I picking a fight about this? Absolutely. It's a fight that has to be picked. There's a lot of people who do excellent work but who never seem to get any financial support, and I think the big reason is that a few big blogs are sucking up all the contribution money. Carolyn Kay of Make Them Accountable does admirable work, and I'll put any of the hosts, myself included, who work so hard at the Head On Radio Network (and mind you we've been around for two years, producing the equivalent of hundreds of pages of blogging daily) up against any of the well-paid hosts at Air America. And when we try to explain how little we need in contributions or ad sales (hey an ad on my show can be had for as little as five dollars per play, and that's for an advertisement, not a giveaway), we basically get told "you suck".
The right, when it comes to this, acts like liberals, the left acts like conservatives. George Lakoff said it right: they will give millions to organizations and say "do what you need to do," we might give $50,000 and demand accountability for every penny. This is a huge reason we're losing the communication wars. Rush is paid millions and is on radio stations across the country on radio stations owned by right-wingers who understood that the money they spent was an investment, one with heavy returns.
I love Glenn's work, but when I saw him asking for donations, it really got my goat. While it's true I don't know what Salon pays him for his column, I think I can reasonably assume it's more than enough to cover his living expenses. I'm not saying you shouldn't give anything to him, I'm saying that I wouldn't expect Paul Krugman to ask for donations, either.
We need to start figuring out how not to lose good solid voices (like we lost Billmon, as I mentioned) because their skills at fundraising weren't good enough or because they didn't get the attention of the right people.
I think it's great we're helping put Markos' kids through college, I'd like to see us all still here when it's time for them to graduate.
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The People do not know about it
"Bush policies become increasingly normalized, increasingly the symbol not only of Bush-ism, but America"
Therein lies the rub. Unless these policies & practices are thoroughly repudiated by current candidates & the next administration the unprecedented deterioration of American international standing will continue to plummet at a rate beyond even the vaguest comprehension of its' citizenry.-- DanJoaquinOz
Therein lies the rub. What CarolynC said is correct -- most reasonably aware voting Americans don't know about what is and has been done in the name of the United States of America. A fair number who do hear of any of this are convinced by their beloved radio talkshow hosts that these things either didn't really happen, were isolated, unrepresentative incidents, or needed to happen for us to be "safe".
It is even less 'seen' than Jim Crow was in the early 20th century -- we have no water fountains in public squares labelled "colored" to remind us.
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Not CarolynC, biogirl
apologies.
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Revelations, chapter 1, verse 238
These words GG wrote pretty much sum up every facet of life in America circa 2007: "the more they are revealed, and the more we do nothing about them, the more they become our own." True not just for Bush administration crimes, but across the board for our civic, economic, societal and cultural lives. If Hillary is nominated and Milquetoast Reid and punked-by-a-cheerleader-on-The View Pelosi are back as "leaders" of the "opposition" party, really what is the point? Chalmers Johnson is right - we have crossed the Rubicon and the only optimistic thing I can pull out of it is that maybe the American Empire will come crashing down sooner than later thanks in no small part to the enablers in the Democratic Party and the press.