Either Guns or Media

I've been making a lot of noise here and on other blogs in the comment sections about becoming a more aggressive brand of liberal. Trying to un-do the CW established by Conservatives that all Liberals are weak is not an easy task. Must be done 'delicately' as the Wicked Witch of the West says. But fuck that.

After my rants, I get asked - "well, what's the plan, Che?"

Good Question! At first I drew a blank. Knee jerk one-off sniper shot or direct confrontation didn't look like it was going to work more than once. That is not the way to get things done or change much of anything. Militias... well, more of the one-and-done crowd so no lasting effect there either. Just more people in the line of fire and that's not a good thing ever.

The one and done would be fine if I was like Jack Ruby and only had months to live, but unfortunately only the good die young and it looks like I am going to live a looooong time.

So - let's take a look at the Media: Print, Radio, Cable/TV, Web.

In the words of Noam Chomsky, “He who controls the media controls the minds of the public”.

I agree. The numbers don't lie. Fox News has the highest ratings of all the cable and network news shows and recently was voted "Most Trusted Name In News". I almost can't type it I find this so digusting.. (eww.. get it off me!).

Now, how do liberals turn that juggernaut around? Well... again there is the "guns" solution. (note: I still am looking for that balance from when I was a non-violent liberal to the more aggressive liberal and sometimes tilt to the more violent side just because I am still trying to get used to it. You will too! Don't give up, it just takes some time and practice.)

But again that method is found lacking because they'll just hire someone to take Aile's place if a piano somehow mysteriously squashed Mr. Ailes from 20 stories up just as he was coming out of his office.

Money. I guess it all comes down to money. Let's get a Blogtastic fund-raiser together and buy out Rupurt Murdoch! Shouldn't take more than $2.5 Billion or so. Let's get cracking! What's that you say? It would take thousands of years to raise that much money on the web from individual donors? Hmm...

What else you got? Well... there's Matt Taibbi: 

Excerpt: Most of these reporters just want to be inside the ropeline so badly, they want to be able to say they had that beer with Hillary Clinton in a bowling alley in Scranton or whatever, that it colors their whole worldview. God forbid some important person think you're not playing for the right team!

Meanwhile, the people who don't have the resources to find out the truth and get it out in front of the public's eyes, your readers/viewers, you're supposed to be working for them — and they're not getting your help. What the hell are we doing in Afghanistan? Is it worth all the bloodshed and the hatred? Who are the people running this thing, what is their agenda, and is that agenda the same thing we voted for? By the severely unlikely virtue of a drunken accident we get a tiny glimpse of an answer to some of these vital questions, but instead of cheering this as a great break for our profession, a waytago moment, one so-called reputable journalist after another lines up to protest the leak and attack the reporter for doing his job. God, do you all suck! "

Thanks Matt... (I want to have his children).

Seems to me that if we can't get to our elected officials through the beltway forcefield that protects them from constituents, and we can't really protest anymore because the media won't cover it anyway unless you're conservative and wearing tea-bags; maybe we can get to the actual news organizations themselves and get them to print/tell/show the truth? It seems like this is the most vunerable, er.. I mean approachable (still practicing) population out of the big three we wish to change. So Anonymous, or whatever your name is - this is the plan:

An aggressive movement to provide news organizations with progressive news and hold news rooms accountable for the "facts" they publish.

We all have cameras, we all write (most of you quite well I might add), we all know what the truth is. Take it to your local Print/Radio/TV news station and see what happens. They are struggling right now and if you can give then a free lede... they'll be all over it. I have found that if your composition is strong and your word choice above 12 grade level vocab, they will print you even if your subject is controversial, so check your grammer and spelling.

You'll also have to give your name.

This is the sticky part. I love being the greendayman on the net and it's easy to write whatever I want but when it's your hometown paper, the same one you advertise your business in, and they publish your three column rant on "Getting out of Iraqistan - the Quickest Way to Cut 1 $Trillion from the Budget", my customers would not be amused. But if we all did it, and there were hundreds of these columns out there, maybe folk would stop and say... hmmm, maybe there is something to this. It would be worth it.

The local stuff isn't quite so glamorous as the national stage where the big dogs roam. There is no reason not to call them. We're always calling our congressman or representitive who we KNOW is bought and paid for by some aspect of the private sector. So our words, letters, rants, etc. fall on DEAF EARS. At least in my state of Maine. Olympia and Susan are good automaton republicans. I beat my head against that wall for years!!

So. Let's get the media. This is my plan. Why not?

Fallback position - a return to the Fairness Doctrine.

This is nothing new, but... up to now our stuff is all passive, informational - good, excellent reporting but doesn't change a thing. I vote for aggressive. It's really our only shot.

I've been hearing that we're all doomed or we're all fucked or we're all banana bread for the last week or so. I rail, piss and moan that we need to do something.. well ladies and gentlemen of blogsylvania, here is the plan. We visit local newsrooms, district newsrooms, national newsrooms get ourselves on public opinion boards, really push back hard on national news organizations and work very hard to craft a version of the Fairness Doctrine that will pass. Corporate will try to stop us at every turn. We can't stop corporate but we can inform the network owners, anchors and staff that they are killing people with their lack of reporting. It can be done.

It can be done.

Can you say, "Barack Hussein Obama"?

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UPDATE: God help every one of those lying fucks including Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity et. al if I ever am diagnosed with cancer.

As a Challenge at This Time of Night - When Blogger Wants me to "Log-In" I Take That As Some Kind Of Sobriety Test

But - This was Worth it;

The Definitive Explanation of the Reagan/NeoCon Agenda

Mission Accomplished: The Reagan Occupation and the Destruction of the American Middle Class by DAVID MICHAEL GREEN FOR BUZZFLASH

Excerpt:

If Americans understood the real ambitions of Ronald Reagan and his puppeteers, and if they knew the degree to which the supposed patriotism of those folks extended beyond falsity and into the far darker waters of being an irritating irrelevance put on purely for show, then they would not only stop seeing Reagan as some sort of national hero, but would also understand that he instead launched a process far more equivalent to an invasion and occupation of this country.

The goal of the right – which cares about America about as much as it does about Burkina Faso – has been to restore the economic order last seen under Herbert Hoover, in which a tiny minority possess vast sums of wealth and there is (therefore) essentially no remaining middle class. It is nothing short of a breathtaking display of a world class greed, worthy of the ages.

It has also been a work of strategic genius (in much the same way one might appreciate the Germans’ engineering prowess in figuring out the logistics of how to mass murder ten or twelve million civilians in a year or two), one which has drawn upon deep psychological insights, absolutely sociopathic amoralism, and clever tactics that have all simultaneously pushed in the same direction. In plain English, they hired some politicians of hit-man level moral integrity, who then marshaled fear, insecurity, hate and deceit into a witch’s brew of self-destruction that would prove highly attractive to a large segment of the population already sinking from the effects of a global economic order rebalancing after decades of post-war American dominance.

But wait, there's more!

And so, despite the astonishing illogic of it all, the American people now clamor for more harm to be brought upon themselves and more of their money to be looted for the further enrichment of the wealthiest one-tenth of one percent of the population. It certainly doesn’t help that the supposed “party of the people” is every bit as much a part of the problem as anyone else, and arguably far more so given the extra measure of disingenuousness involved. From NAFTA to WTO to welfare ‘reform’ to the Telecommunications Bill, Wall Street never had better friend in the White House than Bill Clinton. That is, until Barack Obama simply outright changed the address of Goldman Sachs’ headquarters to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. As we speak, the president and his party in Congress are busy gutting meaningful ‘reform’ of the shamelessly gluttonous finance industry, just as their masters have ordered them to do. And if you think Obama’s bad now, wait until after November. Like Clinton in 1994, he will take the trouncing he’s about to receive in the election as a signal to move even further to the right.

And thus the Reagan Occupation inches closer yet to a full-blown “mission accomplished”. The middle class is on its knees and shrinking fast. Unions have been broken into irrelevance. Government, supposedly an agent of the public interest, has become a complete tool of those it is meant to monitor. Both political parties are fully owned by the oligarchy. The public has been brainwashed into seeing its allies as enemies and its enemies as allies. We have been drained of hope that any actor on the horizon can come to our rescue.

Read the rest here, it is very, very good.

How About We Shrink Down the Size of "Real America ®" Until We Can Drown It In a Bathtub?

I am really tired of not qualifying to be a "Real American ®". How long are we going to let this unrepresentative segment of maybe 10 - 15% of the population, most of whom have no Fucking idea what real america is - define a "Real American ®"?

Jon Stewart checks in



Let's take a closer look at "Real America" ®

Is this real America? -



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Update: Come to think of it, this looks a lot like what goes on around here quite often!!

One More Joe Barton post - then I'm done, promise.

This net managed to catch a few Republicans actually telling the truth. They would rather have corporations ruling you than Democracy. It is a proven fact and here are a few slips of the lip to prove it. (from TPM) They are all about the money. (Joe should have stayed with the banjo)

I HATE Cancer

On this father's day when I should be barbequing or fishing, I am in my shelter, crying my eyes out.

A family gathering becomes the last time we may see her for father's day. The last time she will see the kids graduate, the last time we'll be together for her birthday, the last mother's day, the last Christmas, the last birthday for the kids, the last whatever on and on until the end for the last two years.

I am so fried. Just totally done. I don't have any more tears. I hate cancer - I hate the dragged-out nature, the never knowing, the day-to-day up and down - better one day, worse the next, last rites then up and driving the car the next day. I really can't take it any more.

My inner empath is completly worn out.

Piling on Joe Barton

Amazing! I had not noticed the resemblance between the mongoloid inbred banjo player from Deliverance (1972) and present day Joe Barton. He has not aged well. Have to admit, that is some really fine pickin' but when it comes time to squeal like a pig... Barton is more than happy to oblige.

Thanks to ZenComix over at Sandy's place for the idea.

Joe Biden starts us off - reluctantly, but once that engine is running look out!




And more piling!

What Joe Barton's Words Show Us About the Republican Party

Muddy Waters - Caledonia

I learned to play harmonica at 15. That is another story for another time. I have played with many bands over the years and even was studio harp on a rocking country gospel number - a real toe tapper, but, hey... I was published and on a CD. Prostitution - it's what's for entertainers. It's amazing what one does in the name of rock and roll. But she was so good even to have me at all. I am grateful.

Out to clubs at night, I used to "lurk" around the band when they took a break if they had a blues bone and no harp player - and offer my services. They would always look down the nose and I would say - have a listen. That changed everything - their eyes would get all big, the tone would become most reverential then they'd ask me my name, tell me they would call me up to the stage next set and as an aside - and almost invariably, ask me if I knew Caledonia. Just so happens I do....

"Centrist" Media Fail

Chuck Todd is an absolute failure as an impartial journalist, but a massive success at making millions of dollars. THIS is the problem with media today. Millionaires are almost always republican because they owe their ill-gotten gains to conservative policies that steal from the middle class and give to the rich. I had high hopes for Chuck Todd in his early days but as his MSM cred grows, his impartiality wanes. A shame.

Nancy Pelosi reminds Todd of exactly whose mess this is. One cannot erase 30 years of conservative failures and 8 years of total malfeasance in 18 months. As Todd closes the segment with his spokes-model, they have smirks reminiscent of a certain past president and are obviously not convinced.

Goin' Fishing..

..for a few days at Tomhegan Camps on Moosehead Lake in Rockwood Maine.

(Disclaimer - not shown below, but still a great Salmon vid.)



I'm bringing my fishing bear.

See you next week!

I Wish I Could Harness the 'winger Milita

Just imagine! An army of armed, self-rightous, nothing-to-lose, easily led, automotons ready to take out BP, Goldman Sachs, and corporate/conservative extremists everywhere. Oh, the possiblities.

"Ok team, today our objective is BP CEO Tony Hayword. Who wants this one?

Next - Fox News Corp - " Our objective today is Roger Ailes, chief propagandist of the corporate machine and stooge of Saudi (Muslim) aristocracy. Here are his know locations and we should have a schedule soon. Who here has sniper experience? Hold on, hold on - one at a time.....

Oh - the things I could think.