....LMB: "News Tundra"....

Thank you for putting together this interesting site. I too have problems with the monopoly based media. Here is my current pet peave, though I have plenty of problems with the way the media is doing its job. I was wondering what your opinion of this issue is and if you think I am correct.

What concerns me is that our Democratic primary will be a sham directed by the media. The media is picking and choosing which candidates get free publicity and which ones most people never hear of. I don't feel that it is Dean's fault that he is the media Darling, but it makes the rest of us a little suspicious of him. I suppose it may breed a little envy too, but mostly we wonder why the press wants Dean so badly. I think most of the attacks on Dean are due to this obvious favoritism and the resentment it is causing.

There are 9 candidates! There have been no primarys, and the responsibility of the Media is to inform the public of ALL NINE choices so that they can make an informed decision. Instead they are trying to decide our election for us and they have no right to do that.

The Democrat party, ALL NINE candidates, their supporters, and especially all undecided Democrats Need to demand equal time for all candidates and that we get coverage of debates, speaches and other announcments that are appropriate. Fruther there need to be impartial spots paid for by the Democrat party in which the candidates and their basic platforms are shown. If we need a united front lets give it to them, even if the Democrat party has to pay for it. People have a right to choose based on facts and platforms, not media manipulation.

I am a John Edwards supporter, and have no desire to critizise Dean. I think Edwards is an unusually good candidate, which is head and sholders above anything this nation has ever seen in the way of Presidential candidates. I don't hate Dean, I just want all people to see Edwards enough to know who he is. I think the others deserve that kind of coverage also. I want the media to do its job fairly. I don't think this one sided coverage is fair to anyone including Dean. At this point all our candidates still have a pretty even chance of getting the nomination, or would if the media would present all the candidates equally. I thought there was a law to force media to give equal time to all candidates. Am I wrong about that?

Jake,

I am not at all surprised that most people interviewed on the streets of Manhattan still think Sadaam had something to do with 9/11. What does continue to amaze me is that people on the left, (or liberals or radicals - whatever) are in the least bit surprised by this. We live in a deeply racist country - really, really profoundly racist. In June of 2000, when liberals were touting what a great choice in VP Gore had made in Joe Lieberman, my immediate reaction was 'What is he thinking? He is going to lose the South'. My Jewish friends were appalled that I would react that way - they refused to believe that most Americans cared about that sort of thing. I told them that most Southerners have not ever even met a Jew, much less one as vocal about his religion as Lieberman, and would be very unlikely to vote to have one a 'heartbeat away' as the cliché goes. I think the South's attitude toward Jewish people is very well documented and now, so are the 2000 election results in the southern states.
I mention this because the left seems to still not get it. Call them 'Joe Sixpack', 'NASCAR dads', 'angry white men' or whatever other label you need to, the fact is, most of white America is deeply, deeply racist - and could give two shits if a person is Afghani, Iraqi, Muslim, Saudi, etc. In their small minds, THEY ARE ALL THE SAME PEOPLE. If you consider that NYC is maybe the most metropolitan city on earth, with every race, creed, color, tint and hue known to man, how else to explain that even there, the person on the street can't tell the difference between bin Laden, Hussein and the 9/11 hijackers? It's because they can't even locate Afghanistan on a map, don't know where the Tigris and Euphrates meet, and certainly can't tell the difference between a Palestinian, Pakistani, Arab, Afghani, Iraqi, Iranian or Indian.

I realize that this is a bleak assessment, but the answers that the interviewers elicited bear this out. Surprising? Not even a little bit. It’s obvious to me, in country whose only leaders have been white men, mostly of WASP descent, (Kennedy still the only Roman Catholic, and even he did not win the popular vote) why the average citizen can’t tell the difference between the Saudis who actually did the attacking, and the other Middle Eastern people that the media and administration want us to blame. It’s straight up racism.

Racism does enter the equation, but it's more complex than that. If you throw in classism, nationalism, militarism, chauvinism, manipulation of fear, you'd get a clearer picture.

Also, it's hard to truly gauge American opinion. Sure, leftists can form their views of America and then whine and bitch about how "racist and ignorant" Americans are...and the funny thing is that they often get the same information from a carefully selected news items and polls from right-wing media. I honestly can't say what Americans generally think about the war and 9/11. I think many are misled by the media and I think many question the war. But it doesn't really matter does it? Who has the power here? Should you denounce "racist" Americans or do you go after the institutions that make deception possible - government, media, corporations, etc. It seems to me the lefties are being played right into the hands of the neocon thugs. Obfuscating the issues will get us nowhere.

Anyway, my point is to think about why Americans think Hussein was involved in 9/11 instead of crudely dismissing them as racist and leaving it at that. Those who think Hussein was involved are shaped by what the system puts out for them, so it's not entirely their fault. And who knows how many actually believe this -- a few people on the street doesn't equal an entire nation.

the america media without a doubt is an underacknowledged tool of manipulation and
i unfortunately equate most americans' zeal to be enlightened in a political and social manner to the pony ride set up at local fairs: some want off the mechanism that turns them in the same direction with the same outcome whilst others are content to stay on the 360 track hoping to keep their "financially and socially" prosperous status. which makes me think are we a fat saturated, sugar addicted, materialistic non-thinking mass blob of cells? risk is what it's all about, the only thing that makes you feel alive other than love of course. i know there amongst us all that there is not only a handful of adrenalin junkies, why the complacency(sp.?)?

the woman who figures that saddam's capture will mean the return of her son from iraq is heart wrenching and having friends over there i can empathize, but i'm not surprised that it is not showing her the apathy the bourgeios has towards the masses.

john edwards??? the office he holds now is his first political office for god's sakes! even amongst the vipers we get to "choose" from, why a bumbling novice?

EMAIL: amelia2003_5@yahoo.com
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DATE: 01/21/2004 03:18:46 PM
The superior man loves his soul, the inferior man loves his property.