The silence of the left

In reality, it’s not so much silence as being silenced by those who own the MSM.

So what do we do about it? Beats the hell out of me. But we all know it’s a problem.

I have a cousin, who is politically somewhere to the very far left of Barney Frank. He believes that we have been bullied and virtually buried by a minority of America’s fringe nuts. He believes that an infinitesimal percentage of the population has a giant megaphone due to their ownership of hate radio and “Faux News.” He believes that liberals are the real American sheep for not letting their impotent rage burst into the streets. He’s a child of the 60s.

He states that the reason for his beliefs comes down to one word. Capitalism. He believes it’s an unworkable system that would, even under the best of circumstances, lead to the economic disaster in which we currently find ourselves.

Further, he goes totally bugshit if the words “health care” are spoken. (So do I.) He can’t wrap his mind around the fact that so many millions of Americans are willingly letting themselves get raped and protecting their rapists.

I’m damned if I have the solutions for these problems. Hell, if I knew how to make the world a better place, I’d either run for president, or open a “wisdom booth” high up in the Himalayas.

We on the left know that we are getting screwed every single moment of every single day.

So here’s my question. Does anyone have a clue as to how to put an end to this insanity?

I agree with him very much

The fascists didn't buy control of broadcast media in the 80s and 90s so the Democratic left could be heard - not without the heavyhanded use of the news-production office's editing room, anyway.

something to mock, scorn and ridicule. (granted, the latter part of REO's career fits the mold, but I think that's giving the "conservatives too much credit.)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6585804

I know one thing: When we take to the streets these days, no one reports it. The media will report 1000 anti-health care kooks before they report one million anti-war protesters. So, taking it to the streets is no longer an effective option.

What do we do instead if we can't simply buy the media?

or I hope this is not true--the Left feels so hopeless
that they cannot even move.

I prefer to believe the Left has not felt the pinch.

Democrats main problem is that we fight more with each other than we do with the right. There are still people here who believe that RWers can be talked into rational thinking/behavior using kind common sense and loving guidance. These same Dems will foam at the mouth if another Dem espouses a slightly differing viewpoint, yet whine about treating the GOPers with respect and understanding.

Folks, the right is our ENEMY and they HATE US!!!!!

The American left has been threatened, beaten, and killed by the American right since the late 19th century and it is about time the left fucking woke up th the fact that we must unite, at least for the coming congressional election.
The GOP has convinced iteslf, and of course bought the media to spread about, that they will gain seats in congress by doing nothing but insulting the intelligence of Americans, and selling out our country for capitalist dollars.

I love Democrats, and value our differences, but we must realize that the worst Democrat Blue Dog is a better electoral choice than the best Republican who ever drew breath. We might have the moral high ground, but they have the money and the media and no conscience. We cannot stop fighting them.

mark

If people really want to free themselves, they have to get out of the Democrat v. Republican mindset. It's way bigger than party affiliation. A right wing Democrat is just a right winger at heart. The worst of the Blue Dogs could prove just as damaging as any Republican. Max Baucus almost single-handedly stalled negotiations for health care proposals to this point, and Obama's original goal was to have a plan out of committee by the end of the summer. No, he was forced to make a speech after the damage inflicted during the summer recess. Such is the level of discord between liberals and conservatives inside the party. If you want to defeat a Blue Dog, you run a populist Democrat, the kind that existed during the FDR/Truman era, those kinds of Democrats. New Deal Democrats.

The Democratic Party leadership holds no moral high ground, especially when it decided to fund the occupation of an illegal war, but that doesn't mean liberal Democrats within the party are also bad. The liberals should be supported and bolstered against more conservative Democrats who are throwing up roadblocks to real, substantive change. Having said that, I believe the best model for change is the one pushed by Martin Luther King, Jr., who was an advocate of democratic socialism.

You organize a movement that is independent of any political party, and this movement exists solely to pressure the establishment into doing something. It does not allow itself to be co-opted by any political party. As it stands, the anti-war movement against the occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan has been co-opted because the movement's leaders put their eggs in one basket by asking their followers to put Obama into office. Now that Obama is in, they are afraid to apply pressure on him to "Bring 'Em Home." They got Obama, yet the war still rages on, destroying and maiming lives. The Civil Rights Movement did not automatically demobilize simply because LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It continued to rage against the machinery until the movement was decapitated with the assassination of prominent civil rights leaders.

The real lesson of the 1960s has been forgotten. The sooner people realize the only way to change is to apply pressure from without the system, the sooner people can get change. I look upon notions born from the 1960s that you work within the system to change it with sadness. What appears to have happened is that these people have been overwhelmed by a system that is slow to change, that has gotten worse since the 1960s.

The most confirmed in their understandings of what is best for our country will/are turning to or have already turned their attentions to building "new" grassroots economies, small enough to dedicate to collaboratively co - operative goals. They understand that they need to give everything they've got to this entrepreneurship, so they are absent the fray that embroils many of the rest of us.

I am in agreement with the focus of those, true Liberal Populists, who are trying to free themselves and others from Slavery to Trans-National War for Profit enterprises and other manifestations of Economic Royalism.

It's Time.

but that it's devolved into health INSURANCE reform. No worries though. The Republicans won't vote in favor of any socially redeeming legislation on Obama's watch, and the corporate Dems won't vote for anything that doesn't maintain or increase insurance company profits (so forget the public option in this round). As is oft repeated here on the DU: "I don't need insurance, I need health care." We're not going to get actual HCR until we get a genuine "(D)-The People" majority in both houses of Congress.

As for taking back the media, it's going to take an act of Congress. Corporate controlled media is too big and too dangerous to exist. As is the case with all the other old laws that worked to prevent every disaster we've experienced over the past ten years, the rules on media ownership should never have been repealed, relaxed or rewritten. This Congress could change all that without any Republican input. With even the Blue Dogs suffering under such a blatantly biased media, it just might happen.

Your cousin may be left of left, but he's right.

You would think that after 8 hellish years of * & Cheney we'd all be on the same page and would all demand Universal/Single Payer and nothing less from those in Washington DC who were elected to SERVE all of us.

Yet, unbelievably, there are way too many apologists here on DU who excuse Obama and say that it's ok that he won't deliver Universal/Single Payer Health Care like he promised.

It blows my mind that DU is full of a bunch of low down dirty sell outs!

It's disgusting and inexcusable. For shame DU! :puke:

I encounter on an everyday basis. They are turning our society into an angry and rude environment. I am just mot going to put up with than anymore and insist that people remember their manners.
They have not only taken over the media but the way our society interacts - no more.

would stop trying to either silence us or discredit us, that would certainly help. But I'm not gonna hold my breath.

The hard part is getting Congreff and the Administration to go along. They've got it good under the current system, where their campaign contributions are transformed into air time. And the farther right their positions lie, the more free air time and coverage they get, thanks to Mr. Ailes and Rev. Moon and MOCKINGBIRD.

So we need election reform. And we also need FCC reform -- bringing back the Fairness Doctrine and the pre-Murdoch ownership rules. The folks who own the media -- the big corporations' owners -- won't take lightly losing their control.

The Internets are a nice start. Once ABCNNBCBSFauxNoiseNutworks is gone, though, we will see honest tee vee and ray-dee-oh channels. They'd likely be not-for-profit organizations and would do something the current Press Corpse can't and won't do -- fulfill their constitutional obligation to tell the Truth.

Give the wingnuts more rope.