Election Fraud, the Media, and the Right Focus
Chris Bowers wrote a fairly important diary, also cross posted over at MyDD. The piece dealt with the issue of election integrity, in the context of the critical issue of our times -- the media. This piece also contained a strong central premise; namely, the importance of not allowing the recognition of problems to be used as an excuse (the classic example of this being democrats in the media spotlight, recognizing the role of the media in the election of '04, or of the Bush Campaign's misleading statements therein, who do not look at their own very critical role in failing to counteract the highly misleading Campaign of the Bush Administration and use it against them). Bowers wrote:
This is the overriding issue, and it does not get addressed only by excessive manpower. It also gets addressed by the appropriate legislation. That legislation will come from public pressure (which again, still goes back to Bowers' point) and from the election of democrats and more moderate republicans.
Unfortunately, on the national level, a small fraction of the republicans in Congress are moderate, by any standard. This is another key point that is often overlooked, ignored, or mischaracterzied by the mainstream media, because of its potentially explosive implications. But it needs to be made.
Why is Congress so far right wing? Mainly, misinformation. Both of these issues -- the unanswered questions of the 2004 election and ongoing election issues, and the election of far right wing conservatives -- and others, will be addressed by better mainstream coverage. That is, to the extent "big papers" and big media report on these things, is the extent to which mainstream America knows about them.
Thus, the key part of the equation, and what is sometimes overlooked in what are otherwise very good analyses, is that, most of America does not know what [you might] know. They find out what they do know, through the mainstream media.
Again, more national awareness -- knowledge -- leads to better legislation and focus on the right issues (such as our constitution, for instance). In turn, better representatives, also lead to better laws.
More importantly, it is poor information that has allowed rhetoric heavy campaigns to help elect far right wing extremists (there's a particular Senator from Bowers' state, PA, who leaps to mind), who then govern in Congress while getting sugarcoated mainstream press as if they were "moderates."
It's about process. Processes in America matter, more than anything else. One of those fundamental processes is voting. Manpower is great, but the underlying issues have to be addressed, as well. And part of that means bringing attention to them, in the mainstream national debate.
With respect to Bowers' main premise, here slightly modified. The tendency to come up with an excuse for failure. A tendency to want something else to blame, or to solve things:
There is a lot of awareness on blogs now of the poor nature of mainstream media coverage of the important issues of our day. Still not enough I say. But the tone is closer to what Bowers' describes, rather than the tone that right wing republicans started to take over a decade ago. Namely, that "the press is biased against us, and we are going to do something about it." They did, orchestrating a national movement that continues to this day, revolving around this concept, and that continues to have a disproportionate effect on the media and on their coverage of events and issues.
Democrats, on the other hand, echoing the first theme, sometimes bemoan the media, how it is poor, biased, unfair, and then often don't seem to want to do anything about it. Worse is the defeatist attitude that "it won't do any good," when one suggests to constantly make these points, effectively and courteously, to various major media sources.
Somebody who is a leading expert on the media, wrote me on this point the other day, saying "When someone tells you contacting media outlets doesn't do any good, give them [something clearly designed to have them reconsider their thoughts]. They absolutely have to be kept under pressure, constant pressure, to do the right thing."
Taking these points about defeatists attitudes, finding reasons for failure, things to blame, and not wanting to do anything, and contrast it with the tremendous energy otherwise flowing on some of these issues and on some of these excellent websites, that needs to be rechanneled to the heart of the matter.
This diary addressed the issue of the media. It didn't stop at blaming the media, though, but went further and tried to address the most critical reasons as to why, and suggested that democrats take a proactive approach to poor coverage of the issues. It received 3 comments. Commendably, it got rescued, and received a few more. Don't know what to write? Write a copy of the letter on a critical coverage issue that you sent to all the major TV news stations (and Fox doesn't count, btw. It's not a news station. It masquerades as one) or to a major newspaper.
A democracy is only as strong as the quality of its mainstream information (not info people get by actively seeking it out on most websites, but what they get, by the tens and tens of millions, passively, from the radio and TV airwaves, and to a lesser extent the newspapers and their associated websites that have become a part of our nation's routine). And America's mainstream information has been poor.
Readers of the many excellent web blogs out there can effect the way that the media, overly corporatized or not, presents news, and help them do a better job -- by constantly making the effective case to them. It's not so much that they don't want to do a good job, its that they have fallen into the pattern of not doing a good job. One of these reasons is because of constant pressure from the right, that has convinced America that the media is "liberal." This makes it even more important to constantly and persuasively make the case otherwise, on non partisan websites and sources, and most importantly, to the media itself.
(Note; this article was cross posted on the Daily Kos. Therein, one of the few comments noted something that is important to respond to, because it indicates a prevalent pattern and attitude that gets in the way of effectively addressing this issue:
Democrats are not necessarily anti-Corporation. And even to the extent they are, they are anti oligopolistic corporate power, which in turn is anti competition, and anti capitalism, which is based upon true competition. Moreover, journalists in the media are not necessarily opposed to telling the truth just because they work for large media conglomerates. The far right wing has made the case against the media. Repeating a key sentence from the above piece:
I can sense something really depressing at play here, similar to what I wroteHe also wrote:
about in my recent dairy Draft Gore--But Only If You Mean It. All of the
complaints that the Big Bloggers were not writing enough about election reform,
the desire to see election reform talked about in the Mainstream Big Papers, the
desired hopelessness at play in some "stolen election" threads--I can see where
this is all leading now. The mentality surrounding the "stolen election" diaries
has the clear stink of looking for someone else to solve the problem for you.
There is no sense of "Do It Yourself" grassroots action to fix the problem in
these dairies. In the same way that these diaries imply individual voters are
being denied by a great outside power of some sort, the same dairies look to a
great outside power to solve the problem.
People interested in election reform and worried about stolen elections need toEveryone should be interested in election reform if it is not working properly. But it is not only not working properly because of a lack of people going through every single vote, it is not working properly because we have foolishly decided to use machines that are not 100% verifiable, in place of paper ballots. (I also don't' understand the point in some comments about how fraud would be easier to carry out with paper trails. It would be harder, and oversight would have a much more robust effect than on machine tallies which could themselves be inaccurate or altered.)
become judges of elections in precincts and counties all around the nation. They
would go down to their local board of election, as I did, and go through every
single result from ever single voting machine in whatever district was in
question.
This is the overriding issue, and it does not get addressed only by excessive manpower. It also gets addressed by the appropriate legislation. That legislation will come from public pressure (which again, still goes back to Bowers' point) and from the election of democrats and more moderate republicans.
Unfortunately, on the national level, a small fraction of the republicans in Congress are moderate, by any standard. This is another key point that is often overlooked, ignored, or mischaracterzied by the mainstream media, because of its potentially explosive implications. But it needs to be made.
Why is Congress so far right wing? Mainly, misinformation. Both of these issues -- the unanswered questions of the 2004 election and ongoing election issues, and the election of far right wing conservatives -- and others, will be addressed by better mainstream coverage. That is, to the extent "big papers" and big media report on these things, is the extent to which mainstream America knows about them.
Thus, the key part of the equation, and what is sometimes overlooked in what are otherwise very good analyses, is that, most of America does not know what [you might] know. They find out what they do know, through the mainstream media.
Again, more national awareness -- knowledge -- leads to better legislation and focus on the right issues (such as our constitution, for instance). In turn, better representatives, also lead to better laws.
More importantly, it is poor information that has allowed rhetoric heavy campaigns to help elect far right wing extremists (there's a particular Senator from Bowers' state, PA, who leaps to mind), who then govern in Congress while getting sugarcoated mainstream press as if they were "moderates."
It's about process. Processes in America matter, more than anything else. One of those fundamental processes is voting. Manpower is great, but the underlying issues have to be addressed, as well. And part of that means bringing attention to them, in the mainstream national debate.
With respect to Bowers' main premise, here slightly modified. The tendency to come up with an excuse for failure. A tendency to want something else to blame, or to solve things:
There is a lot of awareness on blogs now of the poor nature of mainstream media coverage of the important issues of our day. Still not enough I say. But the tone is closer to what Bowers' describes, rather than the tone that right wing republicans started to take over a decade ago. Namely, that "the press is biased against us, and we are going to do something about it." They did, orchestrating a national movement that continues to this day, revolving around this concept, and that continues to have a disproportionate effect on the media and on their coverage of events and issues.
Democrats, on the other hand, echoing the first theme, sometimes bemoan the media, how it is poor, biased, unfair, and then often don't seem to want to do anything about it. Worse is the defeatist attitude that "it won't do any good," when one suggests to constantly make these points, effectively and courteously, to various major media sources.
Somebody who is a leading expert on the media, wrote me on this point the other day, saying "When someone tells you contacting media outlets doesn't do any good, give them [something clearly designed to have them reconsider their thoughts]. They absolutely have to be kept under pressure, constant pressure, to do the right thing."
Taking these points about defeatists attitudes, finding reasons for failure, things to blame, and not wanting to do anything, and contrast it with the tremendous energy otherwise flowing on some of these issues and on some of these excellent websites, that needs to be rechanneled to the heart of the matter.
This diary addressed the issue of the media. It didn't stop at blaming the media, though, but went further and tried to address the most critical reasons as to why, and suggested that democrats take a proactive approach to poor coverage of the issues. It received 3 comments. Commendably, it got rescued, and received a few more. Don't know what to write? Write a copy of the letter on a critical coverage issue that you sent to all the major TV news stations (and Fox doesn't count, btw. It's not a news station. It masquerades as one) or to a major newspaper.
A democracy is only as strong as the quality of its mainstream information (not info people get by actively seeking it out on most websites, but what they get, by the tens and tens of millions, passively, from the radio and TV airwaves, and to a lesser extent the newspapers and their associated websites that have become a part of our nation's routine). And America's mainstream information has been poor.
Readers of the many excellent web blogs out there can effect the way that the media, overly corporatized or not, presents news, and help them do a better job -- by constantly making the effective case to them. It's not so much that they don't want to do a good job, its that they have fallen into the pattern of not doing a good job. One of these reasons is because of constant pressure from the right, that has convinced America that the media is "liberal." This makes it even more important to constantly and persuasively make the case otherwise, on non partisan websites and sources, and most importantly, to the media itself.
(Note; this article was cross posted on the Daily Kos. Therein, one of the few comments noted something that is important to respond to, because it indicates a prevalent pattern and attitude that gets in the way of effectively addressing this issue:
The media is happy with the deregulated status quo because they own theLosing to far right wing rule constantly, because of mischaracterization of the issues, while the underlying principles of America are slowly being eroded, is the suckers game. Not, recognizing the critical role of the media in all of this, and doing something about it, including, making the case about the media, and making the case to the media.
information iron curtain now. Both major parties are happy with the status quo,
because so long as there is no revolution, corruption as usual can continue, the
war can continue, defense contractors will continue to make campaign
contributions, and everybody can go play golf.
Trying to sway the mainstream media or elected officials is a suckers' game. They know which side their bread is buttered on, and it ain't ours.
Democrats are not necessarily anti-Corporation. And even to the extent they are, they are anti oligopolistic corporate power, which in turn is anti competition, and anti capitalism, which is based upon true competition. Moreover, journalists in the media are not necessarily opposed to telling the truth just because they work for large media conglomerates. The far right wing has made the case against the media. Repeating a key sentence from the above piece:
The tone is closer to what Bowers' describes, rather than the tone thatThe response of democrats? Throwing their hands up, and making irrelevant excuses, or simply just focusing on the wrong things. That was the whole point of the piece. )
right wing republicans started to take over a decade ago. Namely, that "the
press is biased against us, and we are going to do something about it."
They did, orchestrating a national movement that continues to this day,
revolving around this concept, and that continues to have a disproportionate
effect on the media and on their coverage of events and issues.
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