The BIG Picture? The real one? I got it. Right here.
Booman’s latest post?
The Republicans of Louisiana just nominated David Vitter to be their U.S. Senator for another six years. He got 88% of the vote. How’s that for family values? Cheat on your wife and have a prostitute dress you up in a diaper, and the social conservatives give you 88% of their votes.
—snip—
Also, in Louisiana’s Third District, it appears that another teabagger beat the GOP Establishment’s chosen candidate. Teabagger
—snip—
So, the insanity continues with no break in sight.
I am going to say it again.
The Teabagger reaction to the ongoing failure of this government to put America on a good, solid societal and financial footing…for going on half a century, really…is not “insanity”, and using words like that to describe it is counterproductive and dangerous. Demonizing the Tea Partiers is as stupid as their own demonizing of the center and left.
Let us take General Motors as an example of the failure of the entire system.
Fact is, the last decade in which GM made the best cars in the world was the 1960s.
From then on it has been straight downhill. Now you might make the argument that the company has recovered its balance to some degree in the last several years and is once again making competitive automobiles…I wouldn’t argue too much with that idea, myself…but it has been a long time since 1970.
A long time.
Been down so long it looks like up to me, as Richard Manuel so presciently wrote.
As above, so below.
In both directions.
Read on.
The entire industrial infrastructure of the country has collapsed. Instead of making things, we now basically buy things that other countries make. That is simply foolish, and it did not have to happen.
The government failed us. All government, all parties. Left, right and center. From righty Reagan to lefty Obama. (I know…he’s only had two years. Well…he ain’t gonna get much more than that if November topples the House majority. From then on he’ll be Jimmy Carter II. Watch. He may as well just pack it in and start writing his book, `cuz he ain’t gonna get much else done if that happens.)
As the money flowed out of the country, the day-to-day infrastructure also collapsed. Bridges, roads, railroads, airports, mass transit…they are broken, Booman. Broken, with neither the money nor apparently the will to fix them. For example, it was simpler, cheaper and quicker in 1963 to travel from Ithaca, NY to NYC than it is today. Cheaper in terms of real money, leaving out inflation. You simply paid a flat fee and got on a bus or climbed into a car and drove. It cost relative pennies to do so. I used to do it all the time as a semi-broke college student with no financial stress whatsoever. Traffic was almost never a problem except for an occasional accident, and those kinds of traffic jams never lasted much more than a half hour.
Today?
Fuggedaboudit.
I have traveled to Ithaca several times recently, both by bus and in a car. The bus can cost upwards of $50 unless you really dig into the system to find a few well-hidden bargains, and by bus or car any time from early morning until around 10 PM the chances of getting stuck in an hour plus traffic jam or two are very good. Hell, about 6 hours a day just crossing the Tappan Zee bridge can be a traffic nightmare, and compared to taking the George Washington Bridge or venturing into the Jersey Turnpike/Lincoln Tunnel mess the Tappan Zee is the best bet.
Now a case can be made that all of this stems from the failure of the United States to either successfully win its Blood For Oil Wars or back up offa the petroleum feed trough and get its own energy system working well. I wouldn’t argue with that, either.
But I have no doubt that most of the people who are populating the Tea Party rallies are not aware of much past the plain fact that their lives are becoming increasingly more difficult in almost every way. More work for less (real, usable) money, more money for less goods, more effort for less results…the works.
However… they’re not insane.
They are just not particularly smart. They live on the middle of the IQ curve, most of them.
You know…like the majority of people? By definition of the word “middle?”
Their lives suck and they don’t understand what happened.
Plus…they are in a media-induced hypnotrance. Been in one, most of them. since they were about 2 years old.
From Cheerios and Pop Tarts to AstraZeneca and Capitol One in 40 or 50 or 60 short years.
Buy it, eat it, take it. You’ll look better and you’ll get laid more.
Only…it ain’t working.
And they are getting mad.
They are not insane.
Just misled. And fast asleep as well. A sleep induced by their leaders. Quite consciously. Bet on it.
Now…are their leaders “insane?”
Some of them, maybe.
The front men/front women.
Some of them.
But the real movers and shakers?
Like the Koch brothers?
Not many.
Unless you consider the word “insanity” to include having little or no real regard for the ongoing welfare of your fellow humans…another argument with which I would have little trouble agreeing…then the answer is no. They are not insane. They are simply out to dominate by any means necessary in order to profit themselves.
Short-sighted?
I suppose, although the history of mankind seems to give that general act a passing grade in terms of survival. They have been with us for millenia, these kinds of users, so maybe they are not so short-sighted as we may think.
They have won more than they have lost.
So far.
Have conditions changed since the nuclear revolution altered warfare to include the distinct possibility of human extinction and the ongoing ecological breakdown changed the way that we must think about how we use the earth? Will the “short-sightedness” of these users end human history?
Yes, I believe that this is the crux of all of our problems.
The old ways…the ways of princes and oligarchs, kings and warlords…will not work much longer.
I was once caught in a massive traffic jam in the NYC->DC corridor. Before GPS, before cell phones. After about half an hour of standstill, I got out and started talking with the trucker next to me. He had a CB and I asked him if he knew what was happening to cause this traffic. He laconically replied “Too many cars, not enough road.”
Yup.
Too many people, not enough earth if we’re not very, very careful.
Sooner rather than later, I am afraid.
So here we are, Booman and friends.
We have maybe a year or so to stem this rightward tide. After that?
Hmmmm…President Sarah?
Vice President/Cheney-like controller Newt?
A distinct possibility.
UH oh!!!
Get out the survival gear, Madge, we’re headed for the bottom!!!
So what do we do?
We insult these people.
Call them insane.
They are not insane.
They are just “normal.”
On the simplest and most basic of level of a democracy it is the majority of voters define who runs the government. That’s how it works. Mostly.
“Normal” is the majority.
By simple definition, once again.
Are there more of them than there are of us?
Bet on it, Boo.
Bet on it.
Gotta reach them, Booman. Reach them with the truth of the matter. They are being used, and the way that they are being used is dangerous both to their own survival and to the survival of the human race as a whole. We need to counter their programming. Not call them names.
Just sayin’…
They’re people, Booman.
Treat them like people.
Or…they are gonna kick some ass.
Watch.
Watch out.
There are a lot of them.
The line “$3.99? It’s the new dollar fifty.” just ain’t ringin’ real well with them.
No, it isn’t.
Watch.
AG
Wrong. No doubt that you’ll attempt to dismiss this with some cute gilroyism but it remains unrebutted. Teabaggers themselves indicate both high levels of education and income.
My own experiences support the conclusions of this poll. I know personally the individual, amongst others, who wrote last summer’s infamous town hall memo. He is quite well off. (One would have to be to pay cash for a Porsche Boxster.) But he is not the only one. I know many, all living comfortable lives and all possessed of significant education.
They are not average joes working against their own best interests (a la What’s the Matter With Kansas?), they are largely comfortable individuals attempting to defeat the distribution of resources that benefit many average joes. In other words, Keep your hands off my stack.
Let the gilroyisms begin.
High levels of education and income are not necessarily indicators of high levels of intelligence, boran 2.
Duh.
George W. Bush is stinking rich and graduated from Yale and Harvard.
‘Nuff said.
Now let us get to the so-called poll. The “http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html?_r=1&src=mvxxxxxa”>latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
Hmmmmm…
How can you possibly trust a poll that was taken by two of the most effective purveyors of faux war fever during the run-up to the Iraq invasion? Leave alone the distinct possibility that they might have other agendas in mind…do you think that their “pollsters” are leaving the middle class suburbs and recently gentrified urban neighborhoods in which they live to go to Snaffle, West Virginia or East Bunghole, Iowa to gather their information?
Down and dirty?
In the mud?
Please.
Fuggedaboudit.
They poll what they are.
Bet on it.
I really understand how CBS works, having been married to one of its employees for 15 years.
It’s a hustle.
Pure and simple.
So is the NY Times.
And…you have been hustled.
Once again.
I’m not being “cute” here, podna.
It’s not a trivial mistake.
But it is indeed a leftiness mistake.
Betcha you flop around in the Daily Kos fish tank too.
Say no more.
Really.
Say no more.
Hopeless.
AG
Let’s review:
You make assertions that teabaggers are middle of the road individuals with absolutely nothing to support those statements.
I make assertions to the contrary supported by a recent NYT poll. And allegedly I’m the one who’s wrong. Because the NYT is part of some all-encompassing evil scheme to which you subscribe, and which you have repeatedly, umm, repeated.
But now you backpeddle and state that one can be a Harvard graduate and still be middle of the road. Recall that your post states that teabaggers were just people in the middle. Seems like a place not inclusive of high-earning Harvard grads.
Your nonresponse is pretty much as expected. Hopeless indeed.
It’s “backpedal”, boran2. Not backpeddle. No Harvard for you. Guess you can’t be in the Tea Party. You’ll have to join the Kos Kids instead.
And I did not say anything whatsoever about “middle of the road” and tea baggers or Harvard. I don’t know what “middle of the road” means. Isn’t that where the road kill happens?
Middle of the IQ curve is not middle of the road, and I never mentioned Harvard in the original post. In fact, I only used the word “Harvard” in regard to George W. Butch. If you think that he is somehow “middle of the road” in any shape, maner of form then you are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
And…I don’t like your act very much.
I spoke of the “…Teabagger reaction to the ongoing failure of this government to put America on a good, solid societal and financial footing…”
You do not address this.
I said “Demonizing the Tea Partiers is as stupid as their own demonizing of the center and left.”
You do not address this.
I said “The entire industrial infrastructure of the country has collapsed. Instead of making things, we now basically buy things that other countries make. That is simply foolish, and it did not have to happen. The government failed us. All government, all parties. Left, right and center. From righty Reagan to lefty Obama.”
You do not address this.
I said that the Teabaggers “are in a media-induced hypnotrance. Been in one, most of them. since they were about 2 years old. From Cheerios and Pop Tarts to AstraZeneca and Capitol One in 40 or 50 or 60 short years.”
That of course goes for about 99% of the rest of the population as well.
They choose their trance inducers, you obviously choose yours.
Best of luck with your choice.
I made the point that “The old ways…the ways of princes and oligarchs, kings and warlords…will not work much longer,” because war and unlimited use of resources now threaten our very existence on earth.
You do not address this.
I said:
You not even come close to addressing his.
Your point seems to be that the Tea Party is an elitist movement comprised of middle and upper middle class people who are trying to keep the working classes down so they can continue to grab the goodies.
My point is that no matter on what part of the economic curve they live they are dissatisfied human beings, not insane, ravening beasts, and that we should treat them as such.
They have a point.
The country is not working very well, has not done so for far too long and both sides of our so-called two party system are equally to blame for this state of affairs.
They have a point; they are making waves and there are one hell of a lot of them.
Dassit between you and me, boran2.
As is said above, I do not like your act very much.
Come back for the last word if you must.
You win.
Sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite.
Later…
AG
And you continue to duck my point. (Notice that I also did not address your critique of NY area roadways, a subject in which I am well versed. Just ask me to compare Whitestone vs Throgs Neck.)
You have attempted to depict the ‘baggers as rather hapless twits. The evidence says otherwise. They are in fact fairly affluent and educated. While they might have sympathizers from other socioeconomic groups, those actively pursuing ‘bagger goals are anything but hapless.
As to spelling errors, my bad. It was after 11 pm.
Carry on.
You have to distinguish the leaders and those attempting to channel the frustrations of the tea baggers from those who have been hurt by the trends this diary writes about. Yes, the leaders/politicians trying to make hay out of this frustration are well off, many of them are millionaires. They are cleverly channeling frustration away from the root causes of the problem (Reaganomics and our corporate culture from which they have thrived especially with all of those tax breaks) to false issues like Obama being a foreigner, or to the false notion that all government programs are bad and harmful.
The diarist is exactly correct too that politicians from both parties have contributed to the decline that America is undergoing. Clinton helped do away with Glass Steagall, Rahm was active in the 90’s as he is now in fashioning Republican ideas as Democratic ones. Obama is the guy who has done zilch on job creation and single-handedly (no congress to blame here) by executive order set up a ‘deficit reduction commission’ and packed it with people like Alan Simpson, Erskine Bowles and Alice Rivlin, all not only hostile to social security but desiring to privatize it. Jane Hamsher indicates that 11 of the 14 picks by Obama to his commission have written and spoken hostilely about social security in the past. The so-called free trade pacts that have done so much to destroy America’s manufacturing base have been embraced by both parties and by Obama too.
There is a lot of angst out there and the leaders of the tea bagger movement (and some of its biggest contributors like the billionaire Koch family, see Frank Rich’s excellent column in the NY Times) are using that angst to further their own ends.
Obama made a huge mistake by not channeling populist anger towards Wall St. and multinational corporations into his programs. Instead, he has propped them up and he will pay for this in November in a big fashion.
Same as it ever was.
Can I make a request? I typically won’t read anything that starts with “Booman is wrong” or “Booman is missing the big picture” or any other such nonsense, since he’s one of the few on the Web who really DOEs get it.
Why not just state what YOU think the picture is? Then people can decide to read it or not.
All I want to do when I see such a subject is reach through the screen and troll rate you. Help yourself by choosing more wisely.
Feel free to ignore my posts when they are titled in such a manner.
Because…
1-Since this is Booman’s site.
2-Since he pulls a little weight in the leftiness blogoshpere.
3-Since he continues to allow my presence here and actually appears to at least somewhat enjoy the give and take on occasion.
and
4-Since I totally disagree with the demonization thing going on now from the left regarding the Tea Partiers…not from a moral standpoint, necessarily, but certainly from a tactical one.
Then I will continue post what I goddamned well please, and title it the way I please as well.
Thank you and goodnight.
AG
Next you are going to tell me that Steve King and Michele Bachmann are normal. They’re not normal. Their type is prevalent, but not normal.
Except for their position, they are quite common types. You can find them in any working or middle class whites-only (mostly) segregated neighborhood in America.
If you do not realize the truth of this, then you simply do not get out enough, Booman.
You go to Yankee games, right?
C’mon.
King clones are everywhere in every major sport venue. It’s been a long time since I tuned into one, but the people who work in sports radio and their listeners/callers-in? King in a nutshell.
Mike Francesa (Sportscaster)
Peter King (Terrorcaster)
Separated at birth.
(Yeah. I know. Steve King? Peter King. Same same.)
Now walk into any largely corrupt police station in NYC or Philadelphia (And find one that’s not. I dare ya.) and look around at the sergeants and detectives.
Please.
They’re everywhere.
In supermarkets.
Eating at McDonalds.
Driving busses.
All over the goddamned country.
Please.
Bachmann?
She has equals teaching in every school in America.
Waiting on tables in every greasy spoon and diner.
Ruining the lives of their children and husbands as “homemakers.”
Please.
They are as common as dirt, Booman.
That’s how they get elected.
I mean…it certainly isn’t through some kind of smarts, right? Guile, maybe. Smarts? Naaaaahhhhh…..
C’mon…..
AG
arthur is right about this Booman. I know plenty of people who share the same beliefs as Michele Bachman. I meet them at bluegrass festivals all the time. I see them in areas of Philadelphia like Fishtown, south Philly, northeast. they are all over the place in south jersey, where I’ve been spending lots of time due to music.
that doesn’t make them a majority or normal. I know that we have a huge number of buffoons in this country. That’s a given.
“Buffoons.”
They gonna buffoon the Dem’s asses in about 2 months.
Bet on it.
Then what?
AG
won’t cut it, Booman.
What is common is what is considered normal in any given society.
Nazis were “the normal” in Hitler’s Germany. Part of it, anyway.
Until they lost.
Yup.
And these folks ain’t lost yet.
Not yet they haven’t.
Dinosaurs were “normal.”
Until their extinction.
Same thing here.
Bet on it.
AG
This isn’t a contest to see who can be the most anti-elitist elitist, Arthur. We have the 25 percenters who staid with Bush to the end. There are a lot of them. But they ain’t the majority, and they ain’t normal. They’re commonly found in the lower economic strata and in the mid-upper. They hate spooks or spades or spics or whatever they want to call them this week because either they’re competing with them for jobs or they’re tired of paying taxes.
Same as it ever was, just with less hoods.
They do not have to be the majority, Booman.
They just have to contribute to one.
You do the math.
A “majority” is 50+%, given small variances in vote jiggering, electoral college bullshit dring presidential elections, etc.
So…say there is a 25% unshakeable Ratpublican vote. And I mean vote. As in “they go to the polls.”
And a slightly smaller unshakeable DemRat vote,. Say 20%. (I mean…Dems have lost more than they’ve won over the past 60 years or so, right?)
So let’s talk about the swing vote. If approximately 50+% of the undecided 55% of the electorate…that’s only 22.5+% of the total voting electorate…identify with the nice Tea Party people more than they identify with them Black African Muslim Commie Socialist Obamas (Ya think?) then the Obamas lose and the Palins win.
Simple, eh?
If they become the majority (again) then they are the “normal.”
UH oh!!!
Alienate them with insults at your own peril, Booman.
At our peril.
Bet on it.
AG
AG-
I am sympathetic to some of your arguments. But I have to side with Woody Allen.
Bullshit.
Utter bullshit.
On so many levels that I do not have time to sketch them all out.
I can just see you and Woody…you with your new baby in a chest carrier, Woody with his stepdaughter lover carrying his bats…whaling away on the attendees at the Tea Baggers’ next ball.
Please.
Neither satire nor baseball bats are going to knock this movement out of the political park. In fact, the only thing that might do so would be some sort of scandal surrounding Palin.
Geez, how come the scandal guys at the CIA who are presently bumping Assange around don’t have the brains to see a real threat?
Oh.
They think that she’ll give them even more power?
They’re probably right.
So it goes.
Later…
AG
you’re missing the point. I’m not advocating violence. I am saying that you don’t deal with these people by respecting them and asking for their votes, but by defeating them in political combat.
“Politcal combat” is won by votes, Booman.
I repeat…lose enough of the 55% swing vote…well more than half of which resembles the Tea Partiers in every way except possibly passion and commitment…and you do not defeat them.
You are yourself defeated.
And there it goes.
It’s circling the drain already, Booman. Whatever Obama has accomplished.
And you’re hitting the flush button every time you mock these people.
Obama’s not. You are.
He’s too good at what he does to blow it himself.
That’s how he got elected.
But you?
Watch.
AG
I bow in my “elitism” to no one, Booman.
I just try not to throw it in people’s faces when outbumbered and outgunned.
A very bad survival tactic, I have learned….
AG
The rise of the Tea Party is truly an insignificant event as circumstance is going to force people of almost all POV to similar conclusions in the short term.
I’m perhaps your definition of a NE liberal ‘elite’ (I live there, have a degree, a job, vote Dem and believe passionately in the role of government to correct inequity) but I can read the tea leaves: If the democrats don’t make the cuts, they will be voted out of office and the Repugs, with their retarded priorities will do the cutting. I think this explains the composition of Obama’s budget slashing commission.
I think all of these arguments are just a matter of POV.
Perhaps you like BOTH the tea party’s message AND (if anyone cared to look) some of Obama’s policy changes, but you have a very real sense that neither is going to be able to do squat in the face of circumstance. You and your supposed representatives and their potential replacements seem powerless, feckless, corrupt; so very frustrating. So off with all their heads, right?
If you are some accountant with no memory and only some tired economics textbooks to refer to, then perhaps the Repugs’ obstructionism seems like the thing to do.
If you have a memory and some hope, then the Dems seem like the way to go – lessers of evil who at least has some institutional knowledge of how to run a country. But their incrementalist, ‘just enough to keep the lefties quiet’ approach will obviously not yield bold change under realistic ANY circumstance, and by current demonstration, not even in a crisis.
But then you look at the books, the same books
we’ve been ignoring all along and you realize ‘IT’ is over. Bush won. He and his wars and his unfunded mandates and extra-budget antics starved the Beast and the Beast must now die as it is already eating itself to survive. Get it?
The Repugs point out that our parents and our grandparents have looted our future to make themselves more comfortable. They are right, although that fact may well be permanently true now due to their decision to Starve the Beast in the first place (that spending was also borrowed after all).
We’ll never know about our alternate history because they’ve thrown the card table over. Perhaps Bush and a Repug congress decided to Kill the beast when the killing was not necessarily required. Too late now. Un-debatable history because there is no going back.
So here we are, an economy of soap bubbles floating on debt and no base to build on, with calls for further deregulation and tax cutting as the whole thing circles the drain.
Fact is, the only way the ship sails on is if we return to a collective, even global, delusion. Shit is fucked up and until we no longer feel it is fucked up, we will act as if it IS fucked up. Problem is that shit is always fucked up. ALWAYS. I’m loving the Middle East Peace effort as a great way to increase global optimism and stability. Good show.
Sure, we’ve got to reverse the system where value is derived from suffering, else the rich who understand the system will keep their boot on humanity’s neck forever. But, for now, that shit don’t play in Peoria. Short of that, what to do seems painfully obvious.
It’s time to quit whining, finger pointing and nose thumbing so damn much. History will point out the clowns and devils – they are very obvious and everywhere.
If we want to stop living in some Jazzy, hermetic misconception that leads to nothing constructive and actually get OUR people back to work, the less time we spend picking over the Beast’s corpse and deriding the best efforts of good-hearted people, the better (Yes, you).
Just as we need to stimulate the economy now in order to be able to balance the budget sooner, what comes next is pretty much a Repug fantasy, albeit a temporary one: keep taxes reasonably low while cutting the shit out of most everything.
I also support the line-item veto (thanks again, Rudy. Not.) and the idea of surrendering budget allocation to tax payers on their returns (I want my tax payments allocated in the following way next year, 20% defense, 30% entitlements, 10% for education, etc).
If it is done right, then all priorities are cut bare and then, once/if we start to get going again, we’ll see what priorities can be refunded ‘from scratch’. Even a blue bleeding liberal such as myself can see the benefits of such a crucible process (if it MUST happen) – kill all pork and then restart our pursuit of Progress without having to drag along all the dead weight.
Otherwise we are just kicking an ever bigger can down the road. I would LOVE to pretend that things are cool and we can just continue with our progression to social democracy, but I don’t see any long term potential for REAL success given current circumstance (HCR, anyone?).
So, because I DO want to see us with socialized medicine, a reduced military and a healthy public school system, I am all aboard a grand bargain that reduces everything (but with as much emphasis on destroying the Cold War MIC as possible), including taxes.
The current generation of children has ALREADY BEEN SACRIFICED, as far as state-run programs are concerned (if not them, then the next two, if not them, the next three). The easy reaction to this is to borrow from THEIR kids to spend on our own. That is just the wrong thing to do if we want to break our bad habits.
The Seven Generation plan simply MUST be:
Sounds horrible, but there is social progress we can make in the mean time. Let’s get everyone the right to marry whomever they choose. Let’s make sure everyone who is fit to serve our country can do so if they choose. Let’s decriminalize victimless crimes. Let’s reduce the prison population and either ban prison-labor or pay real money for real work. And for God’s sake let’s make sure what stimulus we do actually fixes our crumbling infrastructure so that there may actually be a future economy that isn’t based on the suffering and inconvenience of an expanding, desperate lower class.
AG-
A while ago you had suggested reading the essays of Joe Bageant and I checked it out. He makes very good points and you are on a similar track here. I agree that the followers of this Tea Party nonsense are mostly just average folks who are being used by the leaders. They are the people that society really has left behind. They used to have no trouble finding work at a decent wage, even with their minimal education. Now theyare told they need a degree to find a job. And they’re too old to be learning a whole new trade.
It’s unfortunate that none of these folks can even articulate what their grievances are with the political system that has screwed them over and at present the only people willing to listen to them are the Republicans, who, of course are playing upon their basest fears (race, nationalism, etc.) but they know they’re mad. And they are easy prey for crooks like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey, who claim to represent their interests. We all know that these leaders don’t give a rat’s ass about the “left behind” people, and so do they, but they’re the only ones at least pretending to care. So they refocus their anger on the Liberal Socialist Marxist bad people led by that african mooslim BLACK man. That would be us – the ones who look down on them because they’re dirty stupid trailer park people or whatever who have fallen victim to Fox News or right-wing religious preaching and being used by the oligarchs to in order maintain the status quo.
Our side needs to reach these people somehow and listen to them. We need to be the party that vows to change America so that we actually start making things again and can put these laborers back to work in decent jobs. This will involve changing some trade policy and we’ll surely be called protectionists for doing it. Wall Street will turn against us. But it needs to happen if we want to keep believing that we represent the working man/woman again.
Perhaps we are failing to reach these people because we are associating them with their no-good “leaders” who are all being brought along by various foundations sponsored by the Koch Brothers and the like. Perhaps we’ve allowed the right-wing propaganda machine to get so big and all-encompassing that we’ll never reach them until we neuter it somehow.
You ARE on to something. Alot of others on the Liberal side are missing it completely.
But can anything be done with the leadership we’ve got in place now?
Fuck the “leadership”!
Is this not the internet age?
What do you think is the total economic power of the entire leftiness population of America?
Let’s just say that it is about the same size as the population of some small American city. Duluth, MN, maybe. It’s probabaly much greater than that…it depends on how you define “leftiness”, of course….but Duluth will serve to make my point.
Suddenly the entire population of Duluth agrees to stop buying products that advertise on a network that produced a show completely dissing the people and lifestyle of that city.
And stuck with the decision.
How big would that hit the networks and the media in general.
It would be front page news!!!
Gigantic.
Why?
Not because Duluth is so important to the Gross National Product. If that city fell into a sinkhole and disappeared w/out a trace the GNP would barely move a decimal point after the initial shock of an occurrence like that subsided.
Why, then?
Because it would be a precedent!!!
Real “people power.”
UH oh!!!!
The boardrooms of America would go on full alert.
The media would attack the idea with everything that they had.
If nothing else worked eventually the National Guard would be called in and Duluthians would be forced to buy Swiffer mops and such at rifle point.
I exaggerate, of course.
But not until the last paragraph.
Bet on that as well.
This NEWSTRIKE!!! thing could be accomplished.
What stops it from happening?
Media sickness.
Worse than radiation sickness, because the sores are all inside.
Media addiction.
Have you read my recent post, The Day They Shot James J. Lee.
Read it.
Leaders?
The only way that we can replace our leaders is to first reform the media.
Yup.
Like dat.
Bet on it.
Later…
AG