And NAG HARD! RELENTLESSLY!
"IF YOU REALLY WANT TO DO SOMETHING...make a phone call or send a paper letter. E-mails are quick and cheap and don't carry the weight of a phone call or a PAPER LETTER. Paul Begala says a hundred paper letters would change the direction of a news program." – DUer grasswire, 5/20/04
That's a quote worthy of repeating, from another one of us. I don't know what we as individuals can do as far as actual digging, or tipping off the CIA, FBI, Military or anyone else. What we CAN do is give calcium supplements to the backbones of those who either have been trying to do something (like California Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman), or who SHOULD be looking into this.
The news media is in an uncomfortable place right now, as far as I can tell (especially AS a retired newsperson, myself). Michael Moore has shamed every single one of them, he's shamed them as a group, and he's shamed specific individuals among them whose video clips he used in "Fahrenheit 9/11." Everything in there is true, and fact-checked by people he hired from "The New Yorker," and he knew he had to be prepared because he was making some pretty serious allegations here. If you'll notice, the so-called "truth squads," NBC's Lisa Myers and others who've tried to "expose the lies" in the movie offer the most pathetic, limp, flimsy, mealy-mouthed examples to prove their point - and those same examples hold about as much water as a sieve. The movie being a box office success means LOTS of people have seen stuff many of them HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE, thanks to the negligence of the media. THEY, now, have been exposed, every bit as much as the bushies.
I noted with some hilarity that the "esteemed" Paula Zahn is doing her CNN show tonight on the question - "has the media gone too easy on bush?" - which is telling. They wouldn't even consider this as fodder for a show unless they're acutely and painfully aware that it IS a question that's hanging over their heads. Evidently it's that, AND it's the result of people writing, calling, emailing, and faxing the media. I SWEAR TO ANYBODY'S CONCEPT OF A CREATOR, IF THEY THINK WE DON'T CARE, THEY WON'T, EITHER!!!!!!!
The only thing that turned Vietnam was that PEOPLE, CIVILIANS, started getting fed up with it. They'd see it on their dinner-hour TV news shows and all they'd see was carnage. It finally got to them. That's why you see very little, and certainly no body bags arriving back home. And we've now seen multiple examples of other ways in which the White House has been relentlessly manipulating and managing the media, suppressing everything possible with stonewalling, heavy-handed calls (sometimes from people high up in the White House - like at least two who supposedly wanted Plame's name outed) to editors, reporters, news producers, news managers, and even higher-up - like to their pals on the boards of the parent companies that own the media outlets. They fax, call, and email lists of questions and talking points to the Keith Olbermanns and Tim Russerts and everybody else. Russert obviously eats it all up, probably flattering his ego to be able to turn around and say to his friends and colleagues - "HEY, SEE? The White House is calling ME!" Olbermann waves the pages in front of the camera, exposes it with some derision, and then tosses the pages aside. Most of 'em react like Russert would, unfortunately. The White House or its minions call the media and threaten to yank reporters' credentials, or threaten to blacklist them, or guarantee that they'll never be called on for questions, or that they'll never be able to get anybody to interview or even to talk to them off the record if they don't fall on their knees and make like Monica. Helen Thomas was sent to the back of the room and frozen like a Swanson's TV dinner when she dared to ask them questions they thought were too pesky. Helen Thomas! The Dean of the White House Press Corps (or is that CORPSE, by now?)! She's covered every president since Kennedy, and if ANYBODY knows what's up in and around the White House, she does. And she got sent to Siberia for a long time. And what's even worse, NONE of her colleagues stood up for her! NONE! They were all afraid of getting the Helen Thomas treatment, so they didn't dare. SCHMUCKS. You'll also notice that Christiane Amanpour is only recently back on the air, reporting from Iraq. She got silenced awhile ago, too, and for a long stretch, after voicing criticism of the way the media lapdogged the war coverage. I don't remember any of her colleagues raising a fuss on her behalf, either.
Then they also couldn't help but notice that the Pox "news" network was getting its reporters and crews on bush's jet to go to Baghdad when he did that Thanksgiving sneak-in. Nobody else got to hitch a ride with bush, or got that special treatment. But then again, we know what 24/7 Monicas the Pox people are. Of course they're going to be moved to the front of the line, at the very public and glaring expense of their competitors. Who take notice, BELIEVE ME.
While that's going on, maybe they're getting a dribble of angry letters from viewers, in comparison with avalanches of letters and complaints from the dittoheads who listen to rush limbaugh and michael savage and sean hannity and bill o'reilly, and who are exhorted, en masse, to react on behalf of their beloved jesus w. bush. They're well-trained to write, often they're even provided with astroturf, via extensive and very efficient email lists and contributor lists and supporter lists, to praise the Monica treatment when bush gets that, and to harshly condemn ANY attempt to cover or report the truth. In fact, some of these animals send death threats to media people who don't keep drinking the Kool-aid. Helen Thomas and Paul Krugman and others like them have said they get some unbelievably nasty letters and emails from people.
PLUS, it was two DEMOCRATS (and a few in the media) who got anthrax letters. Funny, no republi-CONS ever got any...
And I can still remember the post here from at least a couple of years ago from a DUer who attended a town hall meeting with his congressman, Fortney "Pete" Stark, from Northern California. This guy, another Dem, is known for being rather plain-spoken, and also for having given republi-CONS in the past some real grief. When you get a guy like HIM coming back to his constituents and telling them, flat-out, that congress and the senate are SCARED to speak out because they'll be widely and publicly slammed for being unpatriotic, or Saddam-lovers, or sympathizers of those "cheese-eating surrender monkeys," or that they hate America (probably for our freedoms!) AND THAT'S ALL, OR VASTLY MOST of what they're hearing from people, this shabby situation we're now in - is the result.
Up til now, there has been LITTLE organized effort from anywhere other than the dark side. It's only since Howard Dean, and MoveOn.org, and a very few others started speaking out fearlessly and making waves, and then a few others got emboldened, and then eventually you have a Michael Moore who sets a proverbial neutron bomb off with the truth in theaters across the country, that OUR side is getting any traction at all. It's only since Joseph Wilson first wrote his commentary in the New York Times that anybody even started giving ANY of these schmucks a second look.
WE HAVE TO FURTHER THAT. WE HAVE TO DO OUR PART. It's only because Howard Dean proved he had such a huge following, who were willing to pour money down on him, all the way through to Michael Moore setting box office records by the dozen (more money and more huge followings) that any of these other cowards have sat up and taken notice that there may actually be something else there.
BUT WE HAVE TO BE THE COUNTER-ARMY to the hoards of mindless dittoheads. We have, for too long, been the Silenced Majority. We didn't speak up loudly or at much length, or with much vehemence. Now, with Michael Moore, the 9/11 commission, the scandals, the WMD debacle, the bad course of the Iraqi invasion, and the lies that have begun to be exposed and proven as such, the bushies are slowly being exposed for the vermin they are. You can't hide from the facts forever, and when such a broad spectrum of them start converging, the bad guys begin to lose their ability to stay on top of it.
But that's how WE do our part. We can't be the CIA, or FBI or the Military, but we can read, research, and know the truth, and so armed, we can spur on those others. Through our reps and through our media. If we keep on them, and keep letting them know that the dittoheads and the threatening call from the White House aren't the only voices out there (which HAS been the perception up til recently), they're going to be forced to acknowledge us.
But it takes awhile, and that long-winded list of what we're up against should give you some idea of how HUGE, powerful, influential, and many-headed our adversaries are.
I can't tell you how important it is for them to hear from you.
PLEASE NOTE MY SIG LINE – TO CALL YOUR REPS, TOLL FREE!!!
OR, TRY (877) – 762 – 8762. It’ll get you there, too! (Thank you, DUer redqueen!)
OR, there’s also 1-888-508-2974. This, too, gets you to the Capitol Hill Switchboard TOLL FREE. But sometimes it gets tied up.
Please note, here, The World's Greatest Lists of Media Contacts – updated May 5, 2004– in the following thread:
LINK:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1533796#IF THEY THINK WE DON’T CARE, THEY WON’T, EITHER!
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