The Marketplace of Ideas

[H2O Man]

"The right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon…has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right." – James Madison; Virginia Resolutions; 1798.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of watching a political documentary on IFC, "Split: A Divided America," by Kelly Nyks. The film focused on, among other things, the manner in which an extreme form of partisanship has infected our local, state and national politics since 1980.

It featured interviews with a number of interesting people, ranging from grass roots activists to Rev. Jesse Jackson, Noam Chomsky, and Al Frankin. There were also some oddballs like Tucker Carlson.

The most important concept discussed in the documentary, in my opinion, was how the current form of "politics" has reduced access to the variety of opinions in the marketplace of ideas that are needed for a healthy Constitutional democracy. There are two examples of this that are worth looking at today. The first is that we do not have true presidential debates. We have instead a highly structured, extended commercial.

I enjoy the presidential and vice presidential debates. I think that in sum total, they will be of significant advantage to the Obama-Biden ticket. Yet I think most of the public recognizes that they are not true debates, and that limits the potential for each candidate’s actual positions to be examined in the marketplace of ideas.

As a result of the present format, the news media will focus on the 15 to 20 second "zingers" that serve to lessen the public’s attention span. An example of how sound byte communications limits the marketplace of ideas can be identified from the democratic primary debates. A progressive candidate like Dennis Kucinich is not allowed to actually present his ideas in a manner where they can be compared to moderate candidates’; instead, in order to get attention, he has to focus on one-liners that are more likely to get play on the network/cable news.

Likewise, on almost every television news program, there is a firewall that prevents an actual progressive democrat (or other leftist) voice from being heard. This is not based upon those voices being "wrong" on important issues – the early opposition to the Bush-Cheney war of aggression in Iraq provides the most obvious example of that. Instead, it is an attempt to marginalize those who view things from outside of what the corporate media considers proper. Thus, the current "dollar store" that replaces the marketplace of ideas pretends that someone like Alan Colmes represents liberal and progressive thought.

The result is unfortunate: the documentary reported that about 78% of voters identify campaign commercials as one of their primary sources of information used in decided how they will vote in presidential elections. I suspect that this was not the intention of the Founding Fathers.

Obviously, we are not going to cure the problems before November, 2008. But we do have options. In order to strengthen the muscles needed for a healthy Constitutional democracy, we need to exercise the rights defined by Amendment 1. The most important of our options today, for promoting the marketplace of ideas, involves the "letters to the editor" section of the newspapers across the country. This includes not only the big papers – which are harder to get a letter published in – but also the numerous medium-to-small papers which are much more likely to print the majority of letters they receive.

Republican operatives have long known that the letters to the editor of virtually every newspaper become the "most read" section as presidential elections They are organizing republicans at the grass roots level to flood newspapers with letters between now and election day. We need to be conducting our own LTTE campaign.

There are numerous topics that democrats should be discussing in the marketplace of ideas. And by no coincidence, there are hundreds of intelligent DUers who are fully capable of promoting our party’s liberal and progressive ideas in this way.

My most recent effort was in response to a fellow who identified himself as a former officer in Naval Intelligence. His op-ed in a regional newspaper attacked Barack Obama with cheap shots such as "the Temple of Obama" and "the Messiah." I confronted that in as polite a manner as possible.

To those DUers who have been writing LTTE, I sincerely thank you for your efforts. Each letter is an example of what the Founding Fathers intended to be part of the discussion needed for our Constitutional democracy to function properly. And to those DUers who have not sent a LTTE, I strongly encourage you to do so soon.

Thank you,
H2O Man

[brer cat]

1. Good points, H2O Man.

Timing can be very important in getting ltte published. I've had good luck sending in letters on Thurs. to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. They are selecting letters for Fri, Sat, Sun, so the chances are much higher of being picked.

Love that pix of your daughter!!

K&R

[H2O Man]

2. Thank you.

I put LTTE/op-eds in about 16 papers in central NY. This is the busy season.