This article is factually correct, but misses the real issue that afflicts the U.S. government, namely how there can be some fit between it and the religious right. The true problem is that the Bush administration’s infusion of arrogance, incompetence and hypocrisy into the federal bureaucracy has hardly encountered resistance, such as massive protests, denunciations, resignations, whistle-blowing, etc.

The true problem is that the large majority of federal public servants have been somehow cowed into forgetting about their mission of serving “us the people” and focus instead on avoiding waves while awaiting their cushy retirement. This has been one major factor behind the persistence of the 9/11 myth for all these years.

An deep reform of the U.S. government is vitally needed, starting with a huge purge. But the democrats don’t seem up such a fundamental; all indications so far are that they just want to nudge government action more towards people and less towards dumb religion or well-connected business entities.

Love,

91365 by mary on 8/01 at 7:19 am: “... I never thought Republicans were the enemy of democracy until now. Of course I also felt sure the Democratic Party was sophisticated enough to put up their own candidate that would just trounce this actor…guess I was just young and naive….”

I guess there is really only room for one right-wing political party in any country in the end. But then, that’s part of the illusory game of democracy - a two-headed talking monster!

Although I myself have always been a Democrat, My circle of family and friends is balanced with opinions on both sides of the issues.  I never thought Republicans were the enemy of democracy until now.  Shame on any baby boomer who lost family and friends to the Viet Nam conflict and still voted for GWB!  I don’t need to go into any detail, you know exactly what I mean!  It wasn’t until Ronald Regan’s re-election did I realize just how much trouble middle class Americans were in.  I remember thinking voters will never re-elect this moron, especially after not just firing the air traffic controllers, but preventing them from holding any federal job, and the most hypocritical tax of all when he went after tips paid to waiters while pounding the desk favoring tax cuts for the rich and dribble down economics.  Of course I also felt sure the Democratic Party was sophisticated enough to put up their own candidate that would just trounce this actor…guess I was just young and naive.  Let’s hope we all learned our lessons, ask hard questions and demand straight answers or we’re going to lose this fight.

Per Skruff, “Ideas and People like Bill O’Reilly and his puppet master Ruppert Murdoch must be challenged at every juncture.”

Well, said.

It’s probably a good idea not to get too caught up in a whining war of over who’s being meaner to whom.
The main thing is for progressives, liberals, moderates, and sane people generally to continue pounding issues that have always been fundamental to American democracy and supported by a numerical majority, but have been severely undermined by the facist right, namely freedom from poverty (including unnecessary physical suffering), equal opportunity, non-discrimination, and the civic duty of the wealthy to “give back” to those who made them wealthy.

You can be sure that Jet Blue’s abandoning of Daily Kos had nothing to do with their agreeing with O’reilly’s mouth diarrhea but everything to do with subtle and behind the scenes financial threats from his oligarchic majesty r.m.

Thomas, I apologize for misreading your post.  Mea culpa!  By the way, while I try to be earnest, there is no “a” in the name Ernest.

#89814 by Ernest Canning on 7/26 at 2:31 pm: “...What really scares the folks at the Faux News propaganda network is not progressive bloggers but truth….”

They don’t get paid for truth and the truth doesn’t interest them in the agenda they want their favorite political party to tout.

Oh, this is great.  Thomas Billips worships America’s Eva Braun aka Ann Coulter, then mumbles about “insane liberals.”  Priceless!

One reason that Faux News gets viewers. Surfing through channels looking for some serious stories, usually you have MSN doing another crime/prison story, and CNN doing another celebrity gossip storey. Then you hit Faux, and superficially it looks like a serious story.

  Of course ever since they tried the blatant pre-election smear -of changing Rep Foley’s affiliation to Democrat, I have maintained a complete boycott of their station. In the good old days when I grew up, such blatant dishonesty would have had the FCC revoking their license, but apparently we no longer live in the good old days.

Keep ‘em screaming. It’s the best indicator that the great unwashed out here are scaring the shit out of ‘em.  Fear is the name of the win-game in Yankee land these days.

What really scares the folks at the Faux News propaganda network is not progressive bloggers but truth.  It is amusing that, to the immediate right of this post, one finds an ad for “three conservative books” at a buck a piece, with photos of “Culture Warrior” by Bill O’Reilly, “Winning the Future” by Newt Gingrich, “Let Freedom Ring” by Sean Hannity, and “Godless” by Ann Coulter, aka America’s Eva Braun.  How many of the 26% of Americans who are still taken in by these fascists do they really think they will find at a site like “Truth”-dig?  The hard-right is so desparate to delude us, perhaps they will soon turn to offering to pay us a buck for each one of their screeds we agree to read.

Sure, Billy Crystal and ipecac are synonymous but it’s way premature for progressives to begin patting themselves on the back about anything.

“Karl Rove, “boy genius” of the GOP, believed that his generation had achieved a partisan realignment that would overturn the progressive achievements of the past century.”

Seems Karl has a lot to gloat about. Maybe the Nazi right hasn’t gotten everything they wanted, but they’ve certainly turned the clock back several decades.

When George and Dick and Rummy and so many more are impeached and/or behind bars, it will be time for some libations. Until then, please postpone progressives self congratulations.

Not too long ago, I read that Rupert Murdoch had given money/support to Hillary Clinton. That is food for thought.

Conason notes that the Web has changed politics. It has also obviously changed access to information, communication, social psychology and other aspects of our life in very significant ways.

The grass-roots nature of the internet, as Conason’s article indicates, has changed the situation in not only American society, but global society.

Related to many of these developments, attempts to “dumb down” Americans and people globally are not going to be successful. Just the opposite. Grass-roots people are getting more intelligence.

An article that touches on these ideas is ...

‘Dumbing down’ of Americans may not be working

PopulistAmerica.com (Populist Party of America)
June 14, 2007

http://www.populistamerica.com/dumbing_down_of_amer icans_may_not_be_working

This comes from this link and I think it is appropriate here:

http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/background.htm
The structures of media seem corrupted top to bottom. The former president of CBS News Richard Salent said, “Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have.” John Swinton, the former New York Times Chief of Staff, whom colleagues named “The Dean of His Profession”, confessed candidly before the New York Press Club: “I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to writehonest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job […] We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes.”

The media, reduced to a handful of conglomerates by deregulation, mold public’s minds, profoundly affecting interpretation of reality. The largest conglomerates are growing even bigger by consuming competition, almost tripling in size during the 1990s. With the consolidation of the media empires, TV stations, newspapers and radio broadcasting are no longer independent. Only a handful are large enough to maintain independent reporters. The rest must depend on the chains for all of national and international news. It is also unsettling that one ethnic group dominates North American media ownership and staff, without reflecting the ethnic profiles of big business owners, officers and employees. The group refutes criticisms by intimidating the critic, based on historical prosecution of a radical part of the ethnic group [The National Alliance, 2002].

TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, motion pictures speak with a single voice, reinforcing each other. Despite apparent diversity, there are no alternative sources of information. The most prestigious and influential newspapers in the USA, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post illustrate the ability of the media masters to use the press as an unopposed instrument of policy. The papers set the trends and the guidelines for nearly all the others, and originate the news for the others to copy. In a joint venture with the New York Times, the Post publishes the International Herald Tribune, the most widely distributed English-language daily in the world.

Quote: “...the Republican right expected to dominate American politics for generations to come. Karl Rove, “boy genius”....’

Duh, these guys sure have a short half-life!

What happened with Murdoch, though, Has someone in the Democrats not paid sufficient homage to him (in making after-election promises)??? He used to support the far right - now it sounds like he is appealing to the extreme right - from Neocon to Nazi!?!? of course, the proprietors of TruthDig are “hatemongers” too, ha ha!

Endlessly splitting the uSA between right and left wing ideologies is superficial but increasingly negative. One the real economic and climate-change problems start overtaking evryone, it could get quite serious. Unity will have been squandered along with the national wealth, etc etc. The housing crisis is just a start…..

Republicans and Democrats are two sides of the same coin. Society is actually polarized between those who govern and those who are governed.

The only question that really matters is, who are you with?

Aim Big Brother’s telescreens the other way. Hardwire the government to the Internet, now, before its to late.

The meek will inherit this Earth Kristol, you and your defective ilk are irrelevent.
Im a 3rd. gen. Republican ashamed of it today - you don’t speak for me at all.

Right on as usual Joe.

Does anyone feign surprise at the tactics of the right, especially after they have been so long in use, and equally long ignored by Democrats to their detriment?

I heard Democrats moaning and groaning , wringing their hands while they were in the six year minority. Now that they are a majority, however slim, they wring their hands, moan and groan and do nothing much.

Now I hasten to add that the various investigations may indeed bear fruit in the future, yet might not one expect the same attacks and villifications regarding uncovered truths that seems to work unfailingly every damn time? One can only speculate as to why Democrats seem powerless to counter the ravings of O’Reilly, the distortions and drug induced nonsense of Limbaugh, but powerless they seem.