Everything That Ever Happens Is Good News For The Republicans, Corporate Media Insists
Sometimes I think the smartest thing we could do is to push for a national news boycott. Imagine if people had to judge what happens on the basis of how it affects their lives - and not how the media chooses to interpret it. Here's a good example -- for the past week, all we've heard is how the Democrats will lose the majority. As Tim Kaine explains, not so likely:
Democrats' chances of holding on to a congressional super-majority following the 2010 midterm elections have taken a hit in the last month, but their party's chairman thinks it will be the Republicans left scrambling in the fall.
"There's a huge, corrosive civil war within the Republican party that I think will continue to be a factor that will work in our favor in 2010," Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, who also presides over the Democratic National Committee, told CBS' "The Early Show."
On Wednesday, surprise retirement announcements came from two longstanding Democratic Senators, Connecticut's Chris Dodd and North Dakota's Byron Dorgan – a development that threatens the Democrats' chances of maintaining 60-40 filibuster-proof majority over Republicans. (The Democrats actually control 58 seats, with two independents caucusing with them).
And last month, the party suffered a defection to the GOP by freshman Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith.
But aside from the recent buzz about potential Democratic losses, Republicans face the real problem, according to Kaine. In the Senate, two Democrats will retire but six Republicans will join them. In the House, GOP retirements outpace Democrats 14 to 10.
"Retirements are really on the other side," Kaine said.
There are also hotly contested primaries in some Republican districts that may hurt party unity.
The real Democrat problem will be apathy. I'm hoping that as soon as this health care deal is finished the Dems will be able to come out fighting and everything will change.
Actually, considering what a clusterf++k the health care bill turned into, I'm not sure that the Dems losing their super majority is necessarily a bad thing.
Ryoko,
I concur with your view. In addition to the Orwellian horror of Obama cynically turning his rhetoric about health care into the reality of a new and vicious campaign of coercion on behalf of the insurance racketeers, we also have to wonder how in the heck we are going to extricate our government and our Treasury from the wicked grasp of the greedsters on Wall Street who use Obama to rapaciously feed on the carcass of the American taxpayer.
After a year of disappointments and betrayals, I can't see how any citizen can possibly suggest that the Democratic Party leadership is one iota different (except for empty rhetorical flourishes) from the other wing of the Corporate Party. Both are corrupt. Both are perfectly willing to screw the public for the sake of those who bribe them. Both are doing nothing whatsoever to look out for the ordinary citizen. We've been betrayed. Or, as Warren Buffett quipped, "...if there is a class war in America, then my class is winning."
We need a conservative contributor boycott
Go here and get some legislation
http://liberal.posterous.com/the-liberal-demo...
I will go to the polls in 2010 and 2012 and vote for dog catcher.
I will keep my voting record active.
"Sometimes I think the smartest thing we could do is to push for a national news boycott".
HELLO?
Boycott ALL mass media!!!
I would never see most of the contenet posted if it weren't for C&L.
We need to break up the media monopolies. Contact your congress person, we really need to do this.
Is it the 21st century yet?
...sounds good! ...(I'm in) ...workin' on it right now....
I havent watched the clip above...and I won't.!
...my television is off!
one question...can we all still watch "The Daily Show"?
(I think I like Susie's boycott idea) better than Amato's "Fact checking idea"!(as long as we can still watch the daily show and still be boycotter's)
(sorry Amato)
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
If what Mark Fiore reports about the Tea Bag wing of the GOP is correct, I think we needn't be too concerned about them getting traction with the mainstream voter in 2010.
http://www.commondreams.org/further/2010/01/10
Susie,
You wrote: "Sometimes I think the smartest thing we could do is to push for a national news boycott."
Let's take a look at recent history. You will recall that Van Jones was forced to resign from a cushy White House gig when he became embroiled in an effort to get advertisers to boycott the Glenn Beck Show on the Faux News propaganda channel. The upshot was that the advertisers were pretty willing to have their ads cut from the Beck Show, but few (if any) actually left the network entirely. So Roger Ailes just slipped in a bunch of unpaid ads on the Beck Show, helped to orchestrate a campaign that ruined Van Jones' reputation and still had the best year ever for revenues for the Fox News Channel.
What I'm saying here is that sometimes you go for results, and instead you get consequences.
From what I've observed, boycotts only rarely work. The smartest thing I can think to do is to share among ourselves as many worthwhie and independent sources as we can in order to let the citizen decide just what to believe about our government and our times.
Here's an example. As we all know, we've been enduring a malevolent psyop campaign of fear-mongering regarding the plot to blow up an airliner on Christmas. Or was it? Many independent observers have noted the gapping holes and strange anomalies regarding the "official story" on the Nigerian crotch burner. I'm a regular listener at NPR, so I know how dreadful this drumbeat has been. But I'm also an avid researcher of alternative news sources. And the story we are being fed by the MSM regarding the plane incident is beginning to shape up very much like an intel community executed "false flag" operation.
Here's a sample of what the skeptics have to say:
"Scanning the Abdulmutallab story for more lies"
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/artic...
"Questions mount over attempt to bomb Detroit-bound jetliner"
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/bom...
"Who Would Benefit Politically from a Terrorist Incident on American Soil? The Strange Case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab"
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va...
One need not organize a boycott in order to be well informed. One need merely be willing to use the tools available to us on the Internet to become much better citizens in this world gone mad.
I know as a librarian, our organizations have always worried about the lack of access. Almost 100,000 million people in the U.S. don't have internet access, and some only use e-mail or pay the bills. Some don't have the skills to descern the validity of the sites they search.
It seems to me that "mainstream" implies regular--available to all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMhdksPFhCM&fe...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
"the Dems will be able to come out fighting and everything will change" , that's a good one Captain ! LOL . If you are still positive and hopeful good for you but I've come to the conclusion that it's pretty much hopeless . I'm repeating myself but we are in deep shit ,what used to be our watch dog and protector , the MSM , is now in the pockets of the Repugs and the right , we have the stupidest population ( voters ) on the entire planet and the Dem party ? Sadly they are once again proving to be a ( bad ) joke and they too are corrupted . The corruption and the greed , like a deadly cancer is completely out of control and has taken over , we are powerless to do anything about it realistically , it's too late .
wishful thinking that they might take back the Senate OR the House. The Tea Bag Party will likely push the Republican Party OFF THE CLIFF in November. THEN we will really see of the Democrats actually can deliver anything of any value in managing two wars and a soft economic recovery.
Corporate media is a joke. Which is why I switched my cable of some months ago.
I urge EVERYONE to switch their cable off.
The GOP have taken our political infrastructure and have turned it into a media whoring monster that willfully passes partisan-slanted thruthiness and deceptions to its constituency to the point that it has now divided us all. We are left absolutely defenseless against this movement due in large part to our own constitution that permits freedom of speech and in fact encourages political involvement. It seems that if one side wants to calculate and inflict chaos in the nation that they are absolutely permitted to do so, so long as they have the bank-roll to back the project. This seems to me to be this nations Achilles heel.
19 of the 40 Republicans in the Senate are up for re-election in 2010.
* Richard Shelby of Alabama
* Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
* John McCain of Arizona
* Mel Martinez of Florida -- will not run
* Johnny Isakson of Georgia
* Mike Crapo of Idaho
* Chuck Grassley of Iowa
* Sam Brownback of Kansas -- will not run
* Jim Bunning of Kentucky -- will not run
* David Vitter of Louisiana
* Kit Bond of Missouri -- will not run
* Judd Gregg of New Hampshire -- will not run
* Richard Burr of North Carolina
* George Voinovich of Ohio -- will not run
* Tom Coburn of Oklahoma
* Jim DeMint of South Carolina
* John Thune of South Dakota
* Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas -- may retire to run for Gov.
* Bob Bennett of Utah
That's 19 of them. Almost half the 40 Republicans in the Senate.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
We need to get the word out if any of them have challangers.
This is one group that any way possible we need to stop them from ever getting back in.
republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness and it is killing America by the day!
Already there. But can someone explain to me why they show CNBC in Vegas poker rooms? Kudlow's prunish punim makes me wanna blow chunks.
The Republicans (and the pundits who LOVE a horserace) are blowing smoke up your you-know-what. In order for the GOP to get a majority in the Senate, they must:
Hold serve. Keep each and every seat they now hold which is up for election (I believe it's 19) including 6 open seats in which the incumbents have decided not to run (funny how TWO resigning Dems out of 58 + 2 is a foreshadower of doom, but SIX of the 40 R's gets no press).
Then they have to win 11 (not 10; 10 only gets them a tie, which the Democrat VP would break) of the remaining 18 Democratically-held seats. In other words, they'd have to win 30 out of 38 races. Do they really think they're that popular?
Can someone tell me when will the republicans ever do anything that is good for the American people?
Hell, began that a decade ago. Didn't realize it was a movement. These days I watch the local in 1080 just because it's so darn pretty and has weather, switch to a 1/2 hour of BBC the PVR recorded earlier in the day, and then do 15 of BFM Paris' "after midnight" stream. (It's a multimedia box. I had Paris' javascript hacked for full-screen, but, darn it, they've recently thwarted me again.)
Honestly, I don't see how an intelligent person can watch U.S. news without having a stroke while deconstructing all the framing and lies they can fit into half an hour.
What does it matter if they have a 60 vote majority? they are never going to use it , especially not if it concerns things like helping the people out.
Comments are closed on this entry