Ken
So I’m listening to Thom Hartmann on the radio and he’s asking Mark Gafney (?) MI AFL-CIO president the same questions I was asking you, re: how is the local, MI, media covering all this (specifically Snyder and his minions.)
I suppose you know Thom was in Lasing/E.Lansing the same time we were. I do understand that progressive radio is basically non-existent in “the ol’ stomping grounds.” So this is part of what I want to get from and about you. Clearly you, we both, are, a more aware observer/consumer of the zeitgeist, but, part of what I am interested in is the sense of “where the public is,” what do they have to consume ?, at what level of effort ?, what impact?, etc. A bunch of wonderings that probably have no definite answers (besides-- Answers ARE dangerous) but are worth circumambulating.
Anywho, the union guy tells Thom that he actually thinks that the media is telling an “ok” story. Not as much depth as necessary—but collective bargaining, suspension of governments, critical comparisons of platform to actions, etc. Seem that way to you?
It’s always a kick when Thom waxes on about Lansing—today he mentioned his brother as the press operator union rep at the State Journal. The other day he talked about his stereo store in the late 60’s on MAC Ave. ( A woman had actually called in and said she still has a turntable she bought from him)-- Stephen
Stephen
Depends what press you're talking about. MSNBC is giving the bestcoverage
you can imagine, led by Ed Schultz, a former Republican who saw the light.
The mainstream press is not doing much of any value.They mention the right
terms but don't go in depth.
I blogged about the rally on Thursday in Lansing, if you're interested.
Please do spread it around. http://kenwachsberger.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/inspiration-at-capitol-in-lan
sing/ --Ken
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Stephen - Ken dialogue II
KEN
So pretty much the same view as from here. Though imagine that MI and WI are a bit better covered there than here. Only a bit, but perhaps not. So what do you call it when 10 teabaggers gather on a corner? A conservative revolution worthy of massive media coverage. What do you call it when 100’s of thousands progressives rally for weeks? A mob that might become violent and doesn’t clean up after itself (and may want a bite out of your cookie—I presume you’ve heard that metaphor/story going around) (I just made up that “what do you call it”s—they may need a little work.)
While I agree that Obama and the Dems blew it and try to play too nice it does remind me of the old 60’s-70’s argument of can we trust the Dems and/or is they all we got?
Just how far they can stray from their corporate masters is a continuing question. Especially when the media so defines the limits of the debate. E.G. I would love that every time some one calls Obama a socialist that the media 1. Educates them on the definition of socialism and 2. Calls them out for the the (50’s) McCarthyite s/he is.) (And my personal favorite irritant, I want them to be corrected every time they say “Democrat Party.”)
Shared Sacrifice!? When they give back the money they “legally” and illegally stole then we can talk about shared sacrifice. (And just where are THEY sacrificing anyway?) (Of the many examples--) They took the Social Security surplus ( a regressive tax) and spent it on their tax reductions and wars and now they say since the “taxpayers” will have to pay it we have to reduce benefits.
And 400 people owning as much (more) than 150 million. Is the obscenity clear just yet?
When I saw the video of thousands of people outside the WI Capitol trying to get in for the anti-union vote another image popped to mind. The dozen (if that many) people (mostly Rebup staff) imported by Karl Rove for the Brooks Brother riot that stopped the Miami-Dade count in 2000.(Rove's Replacement Brags About "Brooks Brother Riot"-- http://www.democrats.com/joel-kaplan )
I won’t even mention the assassinations that killed liberalism(all right,I just
did.)But, ever since Nixon, the Repubs have only won the presidency when they have committed treason or other crimes. Nixon/Kissinger re: the ’68 peace talks; Watergate; Reagan and Iran hostages (straight from the ’68 playbook); Bush I in covering up his Iran involvement, etc; Bush II in the voter purges, stopping the vote count (with the assist going to the Supreme’s).
And just how could the media even pretend that Bush was at all a competent contender. He had destroyed everything he had ever managed and the TX governorship is certainly no training ground for the Presidency. Maybe just an accurate coherent sentence or two should be minimal qualification.
Stephen,
The difference between the Dems and the Reps always was that the Dems always
said the right thing, at least long enough for the masses to think maybe
they might perhaps just possibly come close to doing the right thing--and
then they did the opposite. The Reps always promised to do what you hated
and they came through. Obama did a great job of co-opting the left, and he
has indeed done a few good things. But he presently is selling out as fast
as he can. Where is he on the union struggle issue. I can't hear him. What
is he doing with Bradley Manning--consenting to torture and denying he's
doing so (he asked the jailers if BM was being treated okay, they said he
was, and so he reported that he was satisfied).
It's too bad. Obama had a mandate to make major change but he was much more
interested in making major nice.
But you can't expect the corporate media to tell the truth. They're the same
folks we dealt with back when, only they're now more concentrated. There is
still the same need for the alternative media. The bloggers are our
successors but most of them have no idea what went on back when with the
underground press. That was why I invited Markos Moulitsas, founder of
dailykos.com, the most important, in my opinion, progressive blog site, to
write the foreword to volume 1, to connect the generations. It isn't because
the bloggers have turned their backs on us or think they're better than us.
It's because they don't know we existed because the schools don't talk about
the alternative press--even journalism history classes, a point I made in a
radio interview yesterday.
So pretty much the same view as from here. Though imagine that MI and WI are a bit better covered there than here. Only a bit, but perhaps not. So what do you call it when 10 teabaggers gather on a corner? A conservative revolution worthy of massive media coverage. What do you call it when 100’s of thousands progressives rally for weeks? A mob that might become violent and doesn’t clean up after itself (and may want a bite out of your cookie—I presume you’ve heard that metaphor/story going around) (I just made up that “what do you call it”s—they may need a little work.)
While I agree that Obama and the Dems blew it and try to play too nice it does remind me of the old 60’s-70’s argument of can we trust the Dems and/or is they all we got?
Just how far they can stray from their corporate masters is a continuing question. Especially when the media so defines the limits of the debate. E.G. I would love that every time some one calls Obama a socialist that the media 1. Educates them on the definition of socialism and 2. Calls them out for the the (50’s) McCarthyite s/he is.) (And my personal favorite irritant, I want them to be corrected every time they say “Democrat Party.”)
Shared Sacrifice!? When they give back the money they “legally” and illegally stole then we can talk about shared sacrifice. (And just where are THEY sacrificing anyway?) (Of the many examples--) They took the Social Security surplus ( a regressive tax) and spent it on their tax reductions and wars and now they say since the “taxpayers” will have to pay it we have to reduce benefits.
And 400 people owning as much (more) than 150 million. Is the obscenity clear just yet?
When I saw the video of thousands of people outside the WI Capitol trying to get in for the anti-union vote another image popped to mind. The dozen (if that many) people (mostly Rebup staff) imported by Karl Rove for the Brooks Brother riot that stopped the Miami-Dade count in 2000.(Rove's Replacement Brags About "Brooks Brother Riot"-- http://www.democrats.com/joel-kaplan )
I won’t even mention the assassinations that killed liberalism(all right,I just
did.)But, ever since Nixon, the Repubs have only won the presidency when they have committed treason or other crimes. Nixon/Kissinger re: the ’68 peace talks; Watergate; Reagan and Iran hostages (straight from the ’68 playbook); Bush I in covering up his Iran involvement, etc; Bush II in the voter purges, stopping the vote count (with the assist going to the Supreme’s).
And just how could the media even pretend that Bush was at all a competent contender. He had destroyed everything he had ever managed and the TX governorship is certainly no training ground for the Presidency. Maybe just an accurate coherent sentence or two should be minimal qualification.
Stephen,
The difference between the Dems and the Reps always was that the Dems always
said the right thing, at least long enough for the masses to think maybe
they might perhaps just possibly come close to doing the right thing--and
then they did the opposite. The Reps always promised to do what you hated
and they came through. Obama did a great job of co-opting the left, and he
has indeed done a few good things. But he presently is selling out as fast
as he can. Where is he on the union struggle issue. I can't hear him. What
is he doing with Bradley Manning--consenting to torture and denying he's
doing so (he asked the jailers if BM was being treated okay, they said he
was, and so he reported that he was satisfied).
It's too bad. Obama had a mandate to make major change but he was much more
interested in making major nice.
But you can't expect the corporate media to tell the truth. They're the same
folks we dealt with back when, only they're now more concentrated. There is
still the same need for the alternative media. The bloggers are our
successors but most of them have no idea what went on back when with the
underground press. That was why I invited Markos Moulitsas, founder of
dailykos.com, the most important, in my opinion, progressive blog site, to
write the foreword to volume 1, to connect the generations. It isn't because
the bloggers have turned their backs on us or think they're better than us.
It's because they don't know we existed because the schools don't talk about
the alternative press--even journalism history classes, a point I made in a
radio interview yesterday.
Stephen - Ken dialogue
Stephen - Ken dialogue
No better place to start this effort at communication with impact than a recent dialogue with ol' buddy Ken in Michigan. Talking politics, the world and whaddaheck is gong on and whadwecando to help move the world forward. ( where is that fulcrum, anyway?)
To Ken:
Not little influenced by the goings on back there--Been thinking about the old stomping grounds, you, et al. How are things from the MI point of view? What's the haps in WI?
From here (SF Bay Area) I certainly see an occasional burst into the general media of some limited conception of thousands of people protesting against the loss of collective bargaining.As minimal as that is it is more than overwhelmed by theunexamined "neutral" langauge of the talking heads of the threat pensions are to the taxpayer, or, that deficit reduction not only is immediately necessary but can only be accomplished by cutting and "shared" sacrifice(ing of the middle class on the altar of the rich) (I added that last part)
Of course I listen to and look for better, more enlightened, perspectives on the
political/personal processes of the times. Yet, even though I remain hopeful--in the long run-- I disdain my own hopefulness.
Perhaps it is always at least some Rage Against the Machine but redirecting the machine is often tantamount to destroying it. Insurance based healthcare is healthcare for the insurance companies. Single payer is healthcare for the people.
Anyway, my heart and hope is with the Solidarity reaction to Republican overreach. And though this phase, as all do, will wane, perhaps a new perch will be regained from which to operate.
--SV
To Stephen:
Democrats at the national level had a chance to make major change--including
single-payer insurance--when Obama won but they dickered around and Obama
spent too much time trying to make nice to people who hated his guts and
were committed to saying no to anything he said yes to. They still are and
he still is. Democrats could have crushed Republicans into the next century;
instead, they let Republicans define the terms of debate. I would say
Republicans are great at that but in truth Democrats are just incompetent.
Republicans say the economy is still no good under Obama. Where are Obama
and the Democrats saying the economy is bad because the Republicans voted
down the ideas that would have made it good? And now Afghanistan is Obama's
war, with no end in sight and my bet that Obama will invade Libya because
the Republicans are taunting him to.
What's happening in Wisconsin is 1) a travesty; 2) happening all over the
country. The Wisconsin Democrats came to life. This is refreshing--maybe, as
George Jackson wrote, you have to feel the worst of how bad things can be
before you begin to make them better (which is just a rework of the therapy
idea that you have to feel the pain before you can begin to get rid of it).
If this is so, then "overreach" will be an understatement when the unions
rally the rest of the disappearing middle class and do what the majority in
a democracy is supposed to do.
It can be frustrating. Sometimes you have to withdraw to regain your energy
but then you have to come out fighting.
--KW
(to be continued)
No better place to start this effort at communication with impact than a recent dialogue with ol' buddy Ken in Michigan. Talking politics, the world and whaddaheck is gong on and whadwecando to help move the world forward. ( where is that fulcrum, anyway?)
To Ken:
Not little influenced by the goings on back there--Been thinking about the old stomping grounds, you, et al. How are things from the MI point of view? What's the haps in WI?
From here (SF Bay Area) I certainly see an occasional burst into the general media of some limited conception of thousands of people protesting against the loss of collective bargaining.As minimal as that is it is more than overwhelmed by theunexamined "neutral" langauge of the talking heads of the threat pensions are to the taxpayer, or, that deficit reduction not only is immediately necessary but can only be accomplished by cutting and "shared" sacrifice(ing of the middle class on the altar of the rich) (I added that last part)
Of course I listen to and look for better, more enlightened, perspectives on the
political/personal processes of the times. Yet, even though I remain hopeful--in the long run-- I disdain my own hopefulness.
Perhaps it is always at least some Rage Against the Machine but redirecting the machine is often tantamount to destroying it. Insurance based healthcare is healthcare for the insurance companies. Single payer is healthcare for the people.
Anyway, my heart and hope is with the Solidarity reaction to Republican overreach. And though this phase, as all do, will wane, perhaps a new perch will be regained from which to operate.
--SV
To Stephen:
Democrats at the national level had a chance to make major change--including
single-payer insurance--when Obama won but they dickered around and Obama
spent too much time trying to make nice to people who hated his guts and
were committed to saying no to anything he said yes to. They still are and
he still is. Democrats could have crushed Republicans into the next century;
instead, they let Republicans define the terms of debate. I would say
Republicans are great at that but in truth Democrats are just incompetent.
Republicans say the economy is still no good under Obama. Where are Obama
and the Democrats saying the economy is bad because the Republicans voted
down the ideas that would have made it good? And now Afghanistan is Obama's
war, with no end in sight and my bet that Obama will invade Libya because
the Republicans are taunting him to.
What's happening in Wisconsin is 1) a travesty; 2) happening all over the
country. The Wisconsin Democrats came to life. This is refreshing--maybe, as
George Jackson wrote, you have to feel the worst of how bad things can be
before you begin to make them better (which is just a rework of the therapy
idea that you have to feel the pain before you can begin to get rid of it).
If this is so, then "overreach" will be an understatement when the unions
rally the rest of the disappearing middle class and do what the majority in
a democracy is supposed to do.
It can be frustrating. Sometimes you have to withdraw to regain your energy
but then you have to come out fighting.
--KW
(to be continued)
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