roots
?uestlove

Once a week, we (read: you) pick the most egregious case of media bias, from mediamatters or wherever (talk about a target-rich environment) and we SLAM the person and publication responsible. Endless emails and calls and faxes. They’re scared of the right–let’s show ‘em we’re not playing pattycake, either.

A couple months of this, every week, and they’re gonna start hesitating for just a brief moment before acting with the usual irresponsibility.

Fitz?

Most people either already know or don’t care that he is a smarmy fake jerk. I know whenever I show things like this to people they say “who cares”. I think it goes back to what Christy was saying, the democrats need TO STAND for something. or anything at this point.

Totally creepy.

The Bush contrition is a calculated PR gambit, piping into about the only reservoir left he hadn’t yet tapped: The public’s capacity for feeling pity for the man.

At what point do we just give up?

I am past that point, but waiting for Sunday Bird Blogging/Garden blogging.

BTW, techie help! I am having a lot of static on my puter speakers, any ideas?

I saw that fake smarmyness from the beginning. I don’t get how so many people didn’t see it.

Foster is quite correct to the degree that the “mainsteam” media — particularly the Punditocracy — should be hit and hit hard.

Repeatedly.

Relentlessly.

The good news is that they’re obsolete and they know it. Thus their attacks on Blogistan. Because thinking Americans aren’t fooled by their bullshit.

Much work needs to be done.

I’ve been mounting a campaign on my FaBlog against Mr. Sheri Annis (aka. Howie Kurtz) for some time now. I trust others will join me in exposing this relentless propagandist for the loathesome shill that he is.

And his little wife too.

Tweety is, of course, a laughing stock. Still there’s no reason to let up. Major Ponies to whoever lands an interview with one of the unlucky ladies who’ve been subject to his sexual attention.

This is not an unimportant point. They want gossip? Let’s give ‘em gossip. Tweety is clearly no different than John Fund. (Though less deadly than The Creature From the Blog Lagoon )

And Mickey Kaus is a racist piece of shit.

The “outing” of CNN’s racism is just the tip of the iceberg as Spudboy of “Ornicus” reminds us here and elsewhere.

I guess I read smarmyness where others read strength. Yuck, just writing that makes me sick.

To be ready to fight against this crap we need to come out from behind our keyboards,get involved and active.
Angry but apathetic won’t help.

You saw Froomkin yesterday, right? He totally called the media on the non-newness and non-newsness of the Bush contrition:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....00879.html

Also, don’t forget to reward the good guys. I’m not sure, but I think Olbermann smacked down Matthews, without naming him, on his show immediately following. In any case, Keith was all over that fake apology crap.

just when i think that the MSM and Bushco can’t reveal themselves to be even more repugnant and shameless, more irresponsible and callous, just when i think that surely they have reached the depths, once again they prove me naive and wrong.

Man, Bush can sure smirk with the best of ‘em, can’t He?

As far as the “whole new way forward” …

My metaphor for “a new way forward” is weeding out knotweed (I guess I’ve got Saturday morning gardening on the brain).

Long story short: I defeated knotweed–Japanese bamboo, which is entirely as invasive as Republicans and their memes–not by rooting it up, which turned out to be impossible, but by growing new plants over it, which denied the knotweed the light it needed to grow, so it shrivelled up. (Bonus: the new plants were tomatoes. A little pepper, a little salt…)

Anyhow, we really need new structures, new growth — the tomatoes that will defeat the knotweed. The fancy word for this is “disintermediation.” And like Jane, I’m not sure what these structures are, but the blogosphere is part of it.

Christy, the good news is the 29% JAR down the toilet swirl the BushCo gangsters are currently enjoying.

This, despite the fact the Right Wing Media is totally in the tank for BushCo.

The Lying Right Wing Media is the most potent Ministry of Propaganda the world has ever seen, and the American People have stopped buying their bullshit.

God, I wish somebody on our team with bucks would get a clue, and buy a real newspaper or TV station or something — Americans are sick of the Right Wing Spew, and want something better.

Reality has a Liberal Bias . . .

The way people would learn about such a Dem leader is through blogs like this. I get much of my news re what’s going on in the world that way and I imagine many others do too. In this age in which we live it’s only a matter of hours before news of some great new voice is made known - and it’s no longer through the MSM. You’re thinking in the 20th century.

I’ve probably gotten up on the wrong side of bed this morning, so apologies if you can hear me yelling through the type…”rantful” is the word my husband coined to describe my periodic episodes.

I understand the whole thing about “respecting the office,” but at what point does the president’s total disrespect for the people allow us to call him on this kind of puerile behavior? I mean, when does someone in the media stand up and ask the president whether he thinks editorializing by facial expressions more befitting a 9-year old is appropriate behavior for a man occupying the most important office in the land?

Which brings us to those who have the power to publicly call this poor-excuse-for-a-leader on this kind of behavior - the media - but who choose to ignore it, or even - in the case of Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Matthews & O’Donnell) wax rhapsodic over his “candid” regrets.

How stupid are these people? Do they not realize that we watch and we listen and we read for ourselves? Does Bush not know that the cameras in the room are functional? Do they think that millions of us who have raised teenagers have never seen the kind of expression Bush made the other night, and that we are not just as angered at being chumped by an insincere apology from our president as we are when our teenagers do it?

I’m with Randi Rhodes on this one - the president is insane. Which is bad enough, all by itself. But we have the media participating in the insanity instead of doing what journalists are supposed to do, which is expose these kinds of flaws in the interest of protecting and safeguarding us all from the harm that could come from allowing it to continue.

I cannot look at that picture without wanting to smack the smirk off of it.

I watched that interview live and what I saw was the same behavior of one of my kids when they were lying about not eating the chocolate cake with that ring of chocolate around their mouths, the eyes darting up at an angle is THE sign.

It is also the kid who is forced to appologise for some act when they really ARE not contrite. Just forced and we all know it. Rove told him to do it and said that he would revoke his Bike Ride previleges if he didn’t fes up!

“Against such an enemy there is only one effective response: We will never back down, we will never give in, and we will never accept anything less than complete victory,” Bush said.

Hitler preferred the term “total war”.

-GSD

Time Rutten, media critic at the LA Times and almost always a great read for his Saturday essays, lays (sorry ’bout that pun) into the media coverage of Enron corruption and the general pass the media gives corporate America.

http://www.calendarlive.com/pr.....l-calendar

One big mistake Democrats make (Al Gore in 2000) is linear binary either/or thinking.

It’s not a People-vs-the-Powerful or a Pro-Corporate agenda — it’s both. When faced with a three way fork in the road, it’s not one path instead of the others — it’s taking all of them.

FDR understood this; Rove understands this; the DC Dems do not get it.

The media is corrupt. No doubt about it. If nothing else, can we take our message directly to the people who don’t read the blogosphere?

Is there a grassroots action we can organize to celebrate Independence Day and remind our fellow citizens, officials and media of the founding principles?

It would be too easy to suggest a repeat of the CTG book delivery with Glenn Greenwald’s book. But can we do something different and more visible to the public?

e.g., a public reading of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution in front of the Capital and handing out copies of them to DC visitors?

(I assume the Congresscritters will sneak in the basement tunnel at first whiff of real live constituents.)

GSD, I realized those words harken back to Churchill:

“We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…”

Faking? looks more like he’s FARTING!

I say it’s time to get out the long knives. The fawning courtiers of the press/punditocracy need to be destroyed. We need a small army of investigators with long lenses to follow these people around and learn about every skeleton in every closet. This crap has gone on long enough.

Rant as usual: Media is concerned with one thing and one thing only: profit and stock price. Anything that delivers ratings and therefore sells soap is covered, if it sells well, it’s covered in spades. If it serves the corporate managers for stock price or money costs or institutional or private investment ends, it’s dictated from above. Waiting for the media to wake up and notice the people’s need for truth and justice is like sitting there waiting for the perfect lover to drop into your life. Ain’t gonna’ happen. We’ve got to do it ourselves…which, in my mind, is exactly what we are doing right now.

Conservatives first succeeded by convincing all conservatives in the country that the press was against them. We need to do the same for progressives. Many of my progressive friends think the media is legit.

ok, I’m gonna read the linked Media Matters piece - but before I do

2 things spilling over from last thread -

next time you find yourself thinking “sheeple”

progressives are all over the propagandizing media (rightly so !), but then we turn on fellow Americans for not being ‘informed’

and

“The Lying Right Wing Media is the most potent Ministry of Propaganda the world has ever seen, and the American People have stopped buying their bullshit.”

Mad props to you ck ! !

Jamison Foster’s piece is EXACTLY right. I have two simple suggestions for addressing this problem of unequal treatment of candidates in a systematic way. These are serious suggestions:

#1 - Get some deep pocket money (Soros style) to hire a stable of private eyes. Shoe leather types who can poke around and find stuff. Gather Hoover-style files on the personal lives of the biggest repeat offenders: Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, O’Reilly, Wolf Blitzer … make a list that matters. And widen the circle to their families and their families’ spouses and friends and closest and longest business associates. Just that big of a circle. And find out where the dirt is buried, and make clear to these people that you have it and that you won’t hesitate to use it IF they trigger the release by unfair stories-treatment-questions about Gore or the Clintons or Dean or Kerry or whoever the progressive candidate under attack is. Yes, “FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE”. A scorched earth policy. Take it to the enemy (and they *are* the enemies of a working civic-political culture).

#2 - When any major progressive politicians who are facing unfair questions or attacks in a systematic way go onto a major forum like Meet the Press, take a chess clock with them and rest it on the table in front of you.

Russert: “What’s the for, Mr. Vice President?”
Gore: “Well, if you start to attack my personal integrity, I’m going to punch the clock on the left, this one right here. Then when you’re done, I’lls top the clock and we’ll see how many minutes you took.”
Russert: “And then …?”
Gore: “Then I’m going to start the clock on the right and we’re going to start talking about the personal integrity of John McCain. Is that a deal?”
Russert: “Well, I run this show. I decide how much time we’ll spend on what.”
Gore: “Tim, are you in favor of fairness and balance?”
… etc.

Okay, those are my two suggestions. If both were actually done, I think you’d start to see some changes. Simple stuff. Sure to be talked about. Sure to address the problem directly.

This is a good start. Exposure. You can’t begin to address a problem until you acknowledge it exists. I imagine that many of your readers remember FDL. God, relief, happiness..others thought the same way you did. Keep going, Christie, and your experts will help us all to understand.

All RISE for His Most Serene Exalted Excellency

www.bgladd.com/The_Disgracer_in_Chief.jpg

The look on that face! Agghhhh!!!!!

(and, what’s with the dude in yellow, behind, with the left-hand salute?)

Come sit by me, piehole!

back to that tribai identity thingy for a moment -

couldn’t help but feel that Richard Wolfe ‘outed’ the Chimp b/c he saw it as a mockery of what Blair was tryin to do

In order for a dirt-digging campaign to succeed, you would first have to break through the code of silence that exists in the media industry just as it does in other professions. Turning blogs like this into a version of the (gag) Drudge Report isn’t the way to do it.

Beyond that, you have the chokehold the corporations have on their media outlets. They may say that there’s a chinese wall between the corporate interests and the reporting, but it’s pretty obvious that there isn’t. By the time these guys ascend into the ranks of the top-tier, they are making so much money they aren’t going to take those kinds of risks. You think Charlie Gibson is going to risk his 8-figure, multi-year contract to expose anyhting that would negatively reflect on the corporate ownership or embarrass the hierarchy which supports people like George Bush? Not bloody likely.

Maybe if you put posters of that smirking face on utility poles and overpasses and put it on t-shirts and window decals, with various tag-lines like, “He’s getting away with it; the media cheers his candor?” Or, “The media thinks this is the face of a man of candor. Huh?”

The only thing under the sun that prevents the democratic party from tangling with the biased coverage of a corrupted press is themselves.

They have minds; they have mouths. That the egregious unprofessionalism of the 4th estate remains unchallenged after a quarter of a century is their own damn fault.

Don’t forget, either, that a great many have agenda’s that are well served by that corruption.

Well here’s proof that the country has tuned Bush out. We don’t know C-SPAN’s numbers, cause they never poll for them. But this is pathetic:

Bush/Blair Presser: Ratings
FNC more than doubled CNN in viewers and the demo during the Bush/Blair news conference yesterday. MSNBC beat CNN in the demo during the coverage.

Between 7:30 and 8:30pm, FNC averaged 342,000, MSNBC averaged 162,000, and CNN averaged 147,000 in the 25-54 demo.
Among total viewers, FNC averaged 1,803,000, CNN averaged 721,000, and MSNBC averaged 478,000.

The Fox number is a bad night for O’Reilly
CNN is a good night for Zahan.
MSNBC is a good night for Countdown.

Bill O’Reilly pulls better than Blair & Bush…

My solution for high gas prices is to develope a car that runs on “Pundit Oil”. We’ll exempt Olbermann, and save him for breeding stock, but the rest we’ll chase down and harpoon them to the edge of extiction. Boil their rich oil down, and fuel the future. Or cage them on the back of vehicles, and let them expel their hot air out the back to propel us forward to infinity and beyond.

You take them on the old fashioned way..here is an edited 5 min Quicktime video (you may have to update your QT via the icon)..feel free to pass it on or contact me nogopostal@mindless.com the link:
http://www.s90370584.onlinehom.....l.Comp.mov

Bush breakfast menu: he’s toast with smarm-a-Lay’d.

(served with his sidekick English muffin, the Blair Botch Project)

Piehole 30 ~

“FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE”. A scorched earth policy. Take it to the enemy (and they *are* the enemies of a working civic-political culture).

THIS IS the issue that so many of the inside the beltway crowd, this is a war.

I hear so many of the Dems being interviewed on Air America and other media outlets. It is well we just need to adjust this a little or that a little.

From a view from the trenches, a single working mom who is putting the last kid through college, being a part of the sandwich generation and being forced to enroll into HSA because the full insurance option is TOOOOO cost prohibative. The houseing market in Phoenix has come to a near screeching halt, I have seen “help wanted” signs all over town and the small business owners are scared.

I know people who are selling everything they own on the thought of leaving the country in a fast getaway. This is my belief but I think the economy is on a knife edge, one little wobble and off it goes and we see a repeat of the 1929 depression. But it will be worse.

Thing of it is that the Smirkerer’s JAR could be in negative numbers and the MSM would still parrot Turdblossom’s talking points and the Congressional Dems would STILL roll over from lack of vertebrae.

Sorry folks, that dizzy, spinning feeling is because we’ve reached the votex point going down the toilet bowl.

The MSM is corrupted and co-opted by its corporate owners; there’s absolutely no hope of change there–they are no more than Velveeta–bland, ersatz, processed to appear like what they are not.

Ant the Dems are hopeless cowards, lacking the basic hormones, courage and the guiding principles to fight against these thugs. The party of the go-alongs–even with Hayden they can’t take a stand.

Hopeless. Just hopeless.

Better now; everyone needs a cri de coeur every now and again.

Joyeux Anniversaire Heureux , Punaise !!!

Mad props to cbl and ck: “The Lying Right Wing Media is the most potent Ministry of Propaganda the world has ever seen, and the American People have stopped buying their bullshit.”

Now, couple that with decling revenue through all traditional media channels and you’ve got a nasty ass double whammy heading right towards the corporate media’s rear hind quarters.

There is real fear bubbling up in the advertsing industry. Particularly with respect to media. Huge shifts in media buys from TV to online, print media is declining and (based upon personal experience) every single fucking marketing director/VP in every single large company is convinced that “virality” is the next big idea. Of course, none of them have a clue as to the nature of viral distribution but, hey, it’s free so we’ve got to get all over it. But I digress.

A few weeks ago, Wal-Mart began to gather together with other advertisers to develop a media auction, further driving down the price of TV spots. The biggest advertisers in this country (car companies) are starting to shift TV media to online. Newspaper circulation is in the toilet. And so on.

Concerted ratfucking of the current Heathers is satisfying, but I fear that we may be playing Whack a Mole. For every Tweety who’s exposed, the CorpMed will just stick in another bot.

It’s good to fight back and fight back hard. But beyond hammering them with letters, email, etc., I’m at a loss as to what else to do here in Rootsville other than support LWB (Leaders With Balls).

And I’ll ask my question again from the last thread: What happened to the party that stands for those Americans who “work hard, play by the rules” etc.? Did that little Carvel gem get stuffed up the butts of the Dem consultants? Was it too closely aligned with “scandal-plagued Clenis”?

I have a sign in my front yard “bush lied, soldiers died” and have had several strangers stop and tell me they like it. Today the cable tv man was here to repair my system and he said that he like the sign and was quite excited about it. This is a Disney dominated area and very conservative.

Be of good cheers folks!

Cathy:
I saw that fake smarmyness from the beginning. I don’t get how so many people didn’t see it.

A lot of Americans love fake and smarmy. How else did “reality” TV get to where it is today? Or “professional” “wrestling?”

Must say, that photo just makes you want to put him back in that Mattel flight-suit and parachute him into Fallujah.

David (Axis of Evil) Frum was on Charlie Rose last night. It was a panel discussion with Andrew Sullivan, Bruce Reed, and moderated by David Brooks. So it wasn’t that useful a discussion. Frum was acknowledging the liberal blogosphere. Though he stupidly kept referring to Markos as Daily Kos. His main and somewhat telling point was that the liberal blogosphere was so filled with rage that it’s ability to impact 06 or 08 was limited. Well, he wishes. I do think that the point is that there has to be more constructive stategies and dialogue to channel the justifiable anger at fdl and other blogs. For example, a contest for the best caption, cartoon, video, song or whatever for “I got yer sincerity right here …”

mer cbl!

Kornblut and Tucker Carlson dismissed the left blogosphere last nite– Kornblut on the reaction wrt Hill and Bill and Tucker wrt to Plame. It’s a sure sign we are getting stuck in their craw.

http://thehollywoodliberal.com/

Video of Bush discussing illegal immigration. If you miss the background, you are missing something. Sorry if it’s already been posted.

And as always….

http://tinyurl.com/a6erq

^^^ HELP IMPEACH TODAY

Keep the pressure on Congress… Talking about impeachment wakes people up… They question, it’s a strong motivator to get people thinking. It also lets Congress know how intense the dissapproval is for this President… They seem to be a little slow on the uptake. So please:

1) Sign petitions if you have not done so
2) Send a letter to Congress (both Senators & House rep)
3) Send a copy to the media
4) Enlist friends and family to help, ask them to chip in time
5) Spread the link around, email it (with a request to forward) post it on a blog, or in the comments of a news story.

Help out!!!

Thanks :)

On a more serious note, as America becomes more religious, news becomes less important. Faith drives people’s world-views and decision-making more and more, not logic and reason.

The degredation of our educational system suits the corporate and political elites just fine, as an ignorant, faith-based populace is so easily diverted from issues of first importance by “values” issues. To state the obvious, a turdblossom needs a turd on which to blossom.

The MSM are just cheap entertainers, corporate hacks who are fighting for shrinking ratings points in a country that less and less finds them relevant.

Within a decade I wouldn’t be surprised if you have a new CNN–the Christian News Network–with comparable viewership.

Angie 48 -

Tucker claimed on Tweety that, outside of the “angry (read ‘leftie’) blogosphere,” NO ONE cares about the outing of Valerie Plame.

Smarmy little twit.

saving up a little ditty for when Ned beats Slow Ride Joe:

thanks to many of us folk
sanctimonious Joke
sank to moan, yes, choke!

Ah well, Dru sent me this little gem that perhaps we can use to counter the very religious among us:

>>>>>>>>>>>>

Proverbs VI, 16-19:

These six things doth the Lord hate; yea, seven are an abomination unto Him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood. A heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that bespeaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

or in plainer English:

16 There are six things the LORD hates,
seven that are detestable to him:

17 haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,

18 a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,

19 a false witness who pours out lies
and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.

So God was wrong when he spoke to Bush, or Bush had a hearing problem?

BobbyG -

When this battle is over
who will wear the crown ?

who is that ? Lydia Pense? Lou Ann Barton ?, Tracy Nelson ? someone from that era - have had it in my head for months and thought you might know

sorry for the o/t

‘Because everything I say is everything you’ve ever wanted to hear…
So you drop all your defenses and your drop all your fears, and you trust me completely.

I’m perfect in every way

Because I make you feel so strong and so powerful inside
You feel so lucky
But your ego obscures reality and you never bother to
wonder why things are going so well
You want to know why?’

Thanks, Hank

Bush’s face. I have seen that expression before. You all have. It is 7th grade again. (And I literally laughed out loud at Christy’s imitation of a 7th grade classroom note yesterday!). He never grew up. Even when rehearsed at making the correct comments (like described), he cannot help himself. He HAS to show the press that he doesn’t really mean it.

I really truly feel he never grew up. And any of you who have had children of Jr. High age will know what I mean. (Or those who actually remember Jr. High.)

OT wrt to the propaganda recently re Iran, thought others might be interested in this:
>>>>>>>>
In Response To Wiesenthal Center’s Query: U.N. Investigation Finds No Evidence Of Religious Minority Dress Code In Iran

http://www.wiesenthal.com/site.....ontent_id={FF2E589C-0C66-449A-8A9A-6FFE0A44B0D4}&notoc=1

150,000 dead Iraqis? 2,500 dead American soldiers and 17,000 wounded? If those were on any normal human’s conscience, a smirk would never come close to surfacing.

The guy’s a sociopath. There’s nothing funny here.

1. Now THIS is an issue I’m behind 100%. I watched the press conference, and watched Bush’s “regrets” talk. A bit later, I happened to be tuned into the KO show, and saw his interview with Mr. Wolfe. As I listened to Mr. Wolfe, my mouth LITERALLY dropped open and I muttered “did I just hear what I think I just heard?”
I think there’s the term “blog swarm”, or something like it? Well, in my own opinion, this BS by Bush ought to raise a LOUD voice of protest. Bush thinks it’s all a joke…he needs to be called on the carpet about this.

2. On Tucker and his anti-Plame stuff….I “think” his father is a big-wig in the Libby defense fund? I think I’m right on this. Which explains his silly attitude. MSNBC ought to be called on the carpet as to this journalistic ethics issue.
Ghostman

Just what was Babs doing when this kid was a kid?

Didn’t she ever say, “Wipe that smirk off your face, young man, or I’ll wipe it off for you?”

I’m sure that Babs sleeps easily, knowing that whatever flaws her son inflicts on the world are not her problem. Just one more reason why she should be in the front row of the Romanov family “photo.”

Commander Codpiece at West Point-

“The message has spread from Damascus to Tehran that the future belongs to freedom and we will not rest until the promise of liberty reaches every people in every nation,” Bush said.

Freedom? Liberty? Uh, Even if these rookies use their “freedom” to hate us, “plot and plan and lurk” against us, promote “ideologies” that run counter to our wishes?

Bush is SO full of shit one hardly knows where to begin.

Katymine—I agree with you, I can’t tell you how much.

I think a totally different approach should be considered.

To illustrate this i’ll take an extreme example: (Sorry Godwin)

Imagine you’re in Germany in 1933. Do you think it would make sense to take on the media in order to stop Hitler?

Thought so.

Therefore, my advice would be:
fight not the symptoms, fight the CAUSE.

Until there’s a non-profit news agency similar to NPR or PBS online, I think this nonsense will continue. How that will happen, I don’t know, but it needs to happen so that real journalists can find a place to work even if they aren’t broadcast journalists.

The 4th estate is a 5th column…

I really pity the people here that say democrats should adopt the republican approach to politics. That would simply be finishing he job that George Bush started, what a lovely strategy.

The best things the democrats can do, for themselves and for the nations is to show some spine and do so with integrity. American values are not being represented by our “leaders” on either side of the aisle. Americans still have character and compassion - they’re clearly fed up with the status quo in Washington. Every day a few more Americans throw their hands up in disghust with the system, it’s been happening since before I was born. It’s easy to blame American Idol or Survivor but the fact is the system abandoned the people before the people abandoned the system. Maybe they are watching American Idol because American politics is too disghusting to look at and they know that their only option is choosing the lesser of two very evil evils.

Most people don’t vote, if the democrats want to really win big and make a difference they have to solve that little riddle.

Correction to a lurker in #51—-America is NOT getting more religious. The polling shows that the fastest growing group is people who do NOT identify themselves as religious.

The Religious Right has gotten louder and richer. The corporate media is scared of them/co-opted by them. But that ain’t the same as growing. Even the huge megachurches are experiencing static growth—they gain thousands of new members—and they lose thousans of new members. Every year.

Al Gore is my leader, and blogs are my media.

The old mass media have turned increasingly to selling US citizens on what they think we want to hear. Like tales of a confident, religious leader with a vision for protecting us and spreading our proven success formula across the world. Makes me feel all satisfied inside just writing those words. The media makes its money by bullshitting…which is to say, by packaging products so they’ll sell, the products in this case being angles on reality.

Unfortunately, Raw Reality’s viewership has been slipping for the past 30 years because there is a fundamental fracture in the American soul which past victories meta-sized. Media marketing boffins take deep, deep looks into that soul. It’s their daily job. They saw the baseline exceptionalism there, which then morphed into triumphalism with the end of the Cold War, and after 9/11 the American psyche departed from all close comparison with the past and finally, in its wounded self-righteous fury, departed from reality itself.

Anything which questions our inherent betterness in the ways of capitalism, values, and government are immediately squashed by the major media. Howard Dean said being in Iraq is a bad idea (obvious to any person not huffing gas), suddenly he becomes a screaming madman with mental baggage. The media jumped on Dean like bouncers on an unwashed bum. The media is not yet prepared to sell a message of repentance, or tolerate those who call for it. But oh, how much repentance is going to be forced upon us.

The fallacy in our myths have landed us in very deep shit. This is not something that winning back a Democratic House or Senate or Presidency is going to fix. This country is over, it just hasn’t been reported yet, and we can’t get out of the shit without letting go of the myth.

Ghostman
Richard Carlson Tucker’s Father is on the Advisory Committee of the Libby Legal Defense Trust. For Tucker to be making disparaging comments about the Plame affair without disclosing his father’s connection is unethical but not unexepected. It is similar to Tim Russert and Bob Woodward discussing the same affair without revealing their own connections to it. As the excellent Media Matters article Christy cited might say, there is a pattern here.

On the Media Matters article, it was really good and brings together many of the criticisms that many of us have been making about the Corporate Media and their less than objective and balanced lens on the world. The media beat up on progressives and even suspected progressives while giving conservatives no matter how corrupt and venimous a pass. Beyond this, they never ask how would Clinton or Gore or Kerry or Hillary or Dean or any other Democrat or progressive have been treated if 9/11 had occurred on their watch, if they had screwed up the Katrina response, if they had started an unnecessary war on false pretenses and then blown its aftermath, if they had given huge tax breaks that benefited their friends and contributors and doubled the national debt. the truth is any one of these would have damned them and destroyed their Presidency yet all of these and many more occurred with Bush and his Presidency and the response? A smirk is taken for candor and contrition. To ask more would be soooooo unfair.

Codpiece: freedom…liberty…freedom…liberty

Anyone else sick of the most secretive, authoritarian, oppressive, militarist, world-bullying outlaw administration in over a century constantly blathering about freedom and liberty?

It’s depressing to think there are rubes out there still buying this.

D’ya think there’s much sense of individual freedom and liberty at Jerry Falwell’s fundamentalist ‘Liberty University’?

Orwell was so fucking clairvoyant.

New thinking indeed for the future of our country. Surely the dialectic has been corrupted by the corporate media as has been shown numerous times. Continous and withering assaults for each and every example of the “Republicans are real and authentic, Democrats are icky.”

More people need to be invited into the process of voting. The DNC 50 state project is a good start. Zones of walking districts just to go out and ask folks, what do you think about ________? These folks matter too. And encourage them to show up for election day.

Orwell was so fucking clairvoyant.

No, we are so ignorant.

There is only one answer to this problem. Liberals must build their own media institutions. Their own FOX, WSJ, NY Post, Moonie Times, 800 radio stations. The rest is just empty whining.

The GOP has succeeded in taking over the MSM by building a massive Right Wing Noise Machine. They have used this Machine to intimidate and bend the MSM to their own will.

Liberals don’t have anything comparable. Untill they do it won’t matter who they nominate in 2008. The corporate media will portray the Dem nominee as “soft on terror”, “weak”, “flip flopping”, “phony”, “inauthentic”, “uncomfortable in his(her) own skin”. They will portray the GOP nominee as “authentic”, “real”, “straight talking”, “resolute”, “strong”…………I can go on and on. It won’t matter who the nominees are. The narrative is already in place.

It is unfair to the progessive movement to suggest that we not engage in the politics of personal destruction in order to rid the country of the hypocrites on the right.
1. It’s the only thing that will get the attention of the “rubes” who still watch FOX and love the preznit.
2. The shoe has been on the other foot for too long. When the NYT puts an above-the -fold story about Bill and Hillary’s marriage on the front page, while the death toll in Iraq and New Orleans rises everyday and the titans of Wall Street are back-dating stock options for themselves, it’s time to kick some serious ass.
and, 3. It will be fun and just might energize the dems. I agree, though, that it’s useless to go after the MSM. They aren’t important enough to matter, anymore.

Surely with Bushit’s poll numbers being so low now, people are just tuning him out. I wonder how many people watch when he makes a t.v. appearance. Whenever he does, my husband and I make a dash for the mute button. He’ll probably be smirking his way through once the the Haditha story gets legs.

I found this posted in the comments section of the Jamison Foser article in Media Matters:

Contact the Sunday Talk Shows TODAY

Here’s something specific that we can do today about the issues this excellent essay raises: Contact the Sunday talk shows that are going to discuss the Clinton marriage tomorrow. According to the TV schedule today in the “Washington Post,” two of them plan to do that. The shows, and the on-line Web comment forms for them, are:

Chris Matthews show: [link to www.thechrismatthewsshow.com]

CNN Reliable Sources show: [link to www.cnn.com]

Please send them an e-mail and politely and firmly suggest they read this essay as they are planning the content of tomorrow’s shows.

- bb10 / Saturday May 27, 2006 03:02:11 PM EST

Sounds like a good use of five minutes of my Saturday blog-o-rama time.

This is way EPU’d as I post it. Just wanted to say Thanks to Redd for directing us to the Jamison Foster piece. Very coherently documents the issue. Before we can combat the problem, we have to bring it to light, exactly what he’s doing.

Sent the link to all my liberal friends.

Also recommended, relating the the issue of media bias:

“Orwell Rolls in his Grave” a documentary on the media. Netflix has it. Depressing, but excellent.

While I’m handing out kudos, your piece this morning on West Virginia folk as an example of the importance of regional subcultures was superb. I’m a writer myself (a technical writer) and I’m quite impressed with how well you thought through that and dashed it off for us. Thanks again for all your work.

We need a whole new way forward

By George, I think she’s got it.

Could we POSSIBLY start a progressive newspaper??? I would be willing to give as much as I could possibly afford (and even go beyond that, if necessary). Perhaps that has already been tried, but maybe we could find one already in existence, and give all of our netroots support to it.

My first posting on this wonderful site.

One approach is to do something where influence of the blogosphere can have immediate effect.

I see a lot of well-deserved criticism of Tucker Carlson. Don’t you find it galling that Rachel Maddow goes on his show regularly to engage in friendly banter with him, and makes him appear a lot more credible than he is? Well, why not call Rachel Maddow on her show, email her, and say, hey, what’s the deal? Why don’t you get off that horrible Tucker Carlson show?

Same goes for every so-called liberal who appears on any of these punditfests on any network. No liberal or progressive should ever appear on Hardball, for example. And forget about Fox News. Appeal to their sense of principle and force them to make a choice: either you’re with us, or against us, and act accordingly. It should be an article of faith.

Katymine—Iagreewithyou,Ican’ttellyouhowmuch.