So the question for me is this: What is the strongest way to make them back down? We know they are weak because they get pushed around daily and won’t even stand up for themselves. We know they are weak because they love to lick boots, get power hugs and identify with the powerful in a really shameful way. So let’s aim our verbal arrows at their weakness – their shame at being lapdogs. Let’s rub their little doggy noses in their mess.

Just a thought.

Point to remember: look at what they DO; why is a matter of opinion. The Right always questions motive, associations, etc., never deals with fact. They want to sell people a story, and get them to ignore (any fact that makes it into paragraph 17, page 24, of) the mainstream media.

But the bias of the MSM is too consistent to avoid the conclusion: the media doesn’t exist to report on the corporate and political powers — it’s part of the corporate and political powers.

The Right has public relations firms and think tanks combing the record for talking points, Democratic acts that can be distorted, and, in case of need, making shit up. Then they have a distribution machine to get it out, within the hour.

The Internet can ride herd on all this, perhaps make enough noise to get into the national press for a newscycle, but the system shows no sign of being open to consistent criticism or contrary fact. The media exists to support the system. (The much predicted, and now proclaimed, Bush Bounce, anyone?)

We need a way to reach the people misinformed by local press and rightwing talk radio, and candidates not terrified of running afoul of these potent forces. Murtha looks like showing its possible. We also need to raise consciousness about our compromised elections. Bush can go down to 13% approval, and outrage every informed voter in the country, but he still commands congress, the courts, the executive offices, and the mainstream press. The Strauss people disdain the uninformed mob, and work mightily to keep them un- and mis-informed. This administration hasn’t been elected twice, and still they rule as emperors.

Maybe their hold can be shaken this fall. If not, those calls above for revolution may be the only remedy.

So, we need a message, ways to get it out, and paper ballots.

Mudduck, Queens, NYC

However, there is here an example of the left turning into a liberal version of what it is condemning. It is one thing to call out biased news, and quite another to expect all news to agree with your ideology.

In one quote above, “so-called liberal media institutions such as the Washington Post, which in February of 2003 alone, editorialized in favor of war nine times. (Between September 2002 and February 2003, the paper editorialized twenty-six times in favor of the war.)” can we not see the word EDITORIAL. I disagree with these editorials, but they are EDITORIALS, opinions. If the WaPo were to always editorialize against the right or Bush or whatever, they would not be unbiased, they would be liberal. It is important to separate editorial from news.

Why weaken our argument when we have one without these hypocracies?