How can a racist, xenophobe, sexist screamer like Pat Buchanan be considered mainstream by his colleagues?
How can anyone consider Chris Matthews even remotely liberal?
How can a major media star, anchorman for NBC, say publicly he respects/likes/admires Rush Limbaugh and still have a job?
How can challenging the status quo get a major media figure fired? I thought that was their job!!!!!
More of my frustrations over the fold.....
OK, I admit it. I came of age in the sixties and seventies when nuns and priests were leading marches for civil rights, were actively involved in the anti-war movement, and the main purpose of religion (or so I thought) was to nurture and tend to the needs of the poor. So I am stymied by the strong support for this right wing, robber baron administration from the Catholic church and the millionaire catholic boy punditry of Buchanan, Matthews, Russert et al.
I was a child in the 1950s when a man name Eisenhower represented of the republican right, and he got elected by promising to bring the soldiers home, not send them to a permanent war. He was a republican who warned against the military-industrial complex, instead of collaborating with them. Thus, even though I became a left wing democrat early on, I never feared the republican part. I never thought they were an alien, anti people group.
I was in college in the sixties when a hero of mine, JFK narrowly got elected (only because the same catholics now embraced by the Falwell evangelicals resented the evangelicals screaming that catholics were a cult and a catholic president would make us slaves to Rome).
I was inspired when President Kennedy said
"My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you: Ask what you can do for your country."
How did we get from there to here?
And more importantly, how the hell do we get back to being a country proud of being humanitarian (albeit, knowing now that even then we were being duped about many things), and get back to turning America away from imperialism?
To quote words from a song, "Where have all the heroes gone?"
Where are our Edward R. Murrows, our Elizabeth Stantons, our Rosa Parks, our Martin Luther Kings, our JFKs?
NOW, mainstream means Pat Buchanan? Chris Matthews? Tucker Carlson? Bill O'Reilly? What decent human being can listen to these people and not be sickened? And who the hell voted for George Bush?
How did we get into this upside down world and start moving backwards?
It was America that gave support in weapons and money to Saddam and the Bathist party. It was American that set up the Peacock Throne of Iran, a government that imprisoned and tortured its own people. It was America that wanted the right wing despot Pinochet to rule Chile at all costs. It was the (at one time mainstream)media voices in the sixties and early seventies that uncovered the truth about what Americans were doing in those countries; about the lies and spin that got us into Vietnam. Now the mainstream media voices collude with the corporatist robber barons.
I thought we had gone forward. I thought Americans had learned our lessons. I thought finally we were awakened to the dangers unbridled greed, plutocracy, fanatical religions, racism, sexism, imperialism, and war.
While the right jeered a Vietnam veteran in 2004, they applauded a fake, lying, draft dodging deserter. And the media said and did nothing. While the right mocked and insulted a Vietnam Veteran from their own party (McCain), one who had been a POW, they cheered a fake, lying, draft dodging deserter. And the media said and did nothing. While the right had the vulgarity to trash a man (Max Cleland) who gave three limbs in service to his country, only to return and, instead of being embittered, serve his country again, they cheered for a fake, lying, draft dodging deserter. And the media said and did nothing. Where was the outrage from the likes of Matthews or Russert or anyone pretending to be mainstream. The same people that sit there and allow a Coulter to diss a Max Cleland, go off on a tangent of what a fine leader Bush is? While the Republican convention mocked a purple heart veteran, they were silent, and yet they get hysterical if left wing person says anything they think is remotely anti-military. How the hell do we fight that?
Am I in an alternate reality of an upside down world. Is is 1984?
So this morning when I read more diaries on Kossack Dems vs other dems, I wonder. Have they done it again? Has the mainstream media managed again to divide and conquer?
Because that is, I think, partly responsible for how we ended up with chicken hawks like Reagan and Dubya being voted into office. That is how FOX NEWS took hold. And that is how, the likes of extremists like Pat Buchanan get to be a familiar face on the media circuit.
Something is wrong. We have to get things turned around.
We have to stick together despite our differences. We must give our politicians the strength to stand strong. 2006 was merely a start. This is a huge battle and dominating one or two election cycles since 1980 really is minimal.
It will take a revolution of ideas. I do not see us getting people out in the streets as we did in the 60s and 70s. I think the boomers are old, and maybe too many have become too comfortable (I am a boomer so I am not dissing but rather thinking out loud).
We have seen some leaders emerge from the thirty and forty something crowds, people like Markos Moulitas, Jon Steward, Glen Greenwald. Randi Rhodes, Thom Hartman, Olberman. But they are not enough when the voices of people like Hannity, Linbaugh, O'Reilly, Buchannan, Carlson, Matthews and Russert are blasted loud and clear over the airwaves. While the left has to work to find and hear our leaders on the NET, on Air America live streamed via computers, the right has to do nothing to be heard. Like some Fascist machine their voices are everywhere.
So when Kossacks say we need to go faster and harder to the left, I might agree but I am a realist.
If Pat Buchanan is now a familiar mainstream pundit, then we have a huge task to do. And unless we unite and conquer them, I fear for us. Our struggle will not be completed in 2008. I believe that 2008 is the beginning. And realistically it will take a years long struggle to undo the damage that had taken hold for 25 years.
Let's not attack each other. Let's find the common ground to give us the start we need to move progressively left, to undo the indoctrination of the right, and to take back the media that is in bed with the corporate right wing.
WE HAVE TO START NOW, KEEP STEADILY moving forward together. I truly fear if we do not get it together now, and unite to be a powerful force, we may not get another chance.