Fighting for America's Principles:

President Bush, in a televised speech to the Nation, September 20, 2001.

We are in a Fight for our Principles, and our First Responsibility is to Live by
Them.

Illuminating the stark contrast between those words, and President Bush's policies:

It really is hard to imagine any measures which pose a greater and more direct
danger to our freedoms than the issuance of threats like this by the
administration against the press. If the President has the power to keep secret
any information he wants simply by classifying it -- including information
regarding illegal or otherwise improper actions he has taken -- then the
President, by definition, has complete control over the flow of information
which Americans receive about their Government.

This is also the President, who stated, again back on September 20, 2001 with respect to fighting that same terrorism threat:

I ask you to uphold the values of America.

Did these values include the most basic protections of liberty, separation of powers, and checks and balances upon our government under the U.S. Constitution?

Once again, it would appear not. As noted:

The system of checks and balances which our Constitution was written to
institute, is thrown right out of the window. Under this contorted reasoning,
the executive branch can do whatever it wants under the auspices of national
security (secretly, too, to boot, and, prosecute any whistleblowers or press
members for reporting it), prevent any review if there is a difference of
opinion, and prevent the rest of the country, even Congress, from knowing
about it.

President Bush also told the Nation, on September 20, 2001:

These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful..

Fearful enough to accept the beginnings of big brother that the Bush Administration has initiated, under the guise of "protecting us"?

This is a far right wing administration. It won reelection despite easily establishing itself among the worst in history. (To the extent it hasn't usurped powers, it is also hardly balanced by what is currently a fairly far right wing Congress.)

How did this happen? Why did this happen? The answer is not nearly as simple as September 11. Such an atrocity on our soil could (and should have, under the facts) easily hurt the party in power more than helped them. We also haven't secured our ports, secured our borders, secured unsecured fissile materials (our most critical mistake), caught Osama Bin Laden, or al Zirqawi, and we have spent several hundred billion dollars in Iraq in order to see it devolve into potential long term civil war. And this administration fell asleep in the months leading up to September 11 , despite strong evidence suggesting the compelling need to do exactly the opposite.

So what is it? Simple. It's a failure to recognize exactly what the far right wing is doing in its communications with a majority of Americans, a failure to recognize the fundamental need to counteract this, a failure to counteract it and turn it around to effectively and consistently illustrate to a MAJORITY of Americans how rhetoric is being used to manipulate the facts and the issues, a failure to adequately communicate the issues, a failure to show rather than tell, a failure to recognize the fundamental need to do all of these things, and a complete and utter failure to understand the far right by democrats and liberals, cynically believing en masse that their current political opponents are driven by the worst possible motivations, rather than simple preconditioned beliefs that allow them to fool themselves almost as easily as the American populace, AND an absolutely pervasive, self defeating, and unnecessary refusal to accept this reality.

This "rescued" diary on the website Daily Kos provides an apt illustration of exactly what the far right wing does to perpetuate misinformation. It is critical because not only does it provide the classic example of what the far right (including the Fox channel) constantly does at every opportunity, and on every level ranging from overt to subtle, it also serves as an example of something which itself -- rather than the manipulated story which the far right presents via it and similar methodologies, needs to repeatedly be turned into THE STORY. This is something that is both essential to making the effective case to mainstream America, and which has been largely ignored by democrats over the past several years, while unknowingly foundering with respect to what cases to make, and how to make them.

This diary, tellingly, received almost no attention at the same wildly popular and often cited Daily Kos site. It is telling because of the critical subject matter. It focuses on the crucial and fundamental role of the media in providing the essential information necessary for a democracy to work, the need right now to constantly communicate and work to improve this, and the patterns that have led to the right wings' ability to mischaracterize both the issues, and their opponents. Most of all, it shows the democrats critical role in all of this.

With no effective balance presented by a communication emasculated democratic party (the above piece provides links that illustrate the tendencies why), the republican party has lurched to the right, so rapidly, and so anti-Constitutionally, that today even many republicans are beginning to see this, even while the ongoing process of misinformation, poor mainstream media coverage, and increasing restrictions on government information feeds upon itself, further undermining information processes and making it increasingly difficult for America to get back on track.

These things are what democrats need to focus on.