Wednesday, November 3

BLAME IT ON THE PRESS


After huddling with several Democratic co-workers today post-election, I'm as confused as ever. One insisted that the Dems have to drop the partial-birth abortion hot potato quickly, oppose gay marriage outright (civil unions are OK) and emphatically, start talking faith more, and in general get off the unpopular side of the culture war. A second asserted that until a generation (particularly those oldsters who long for a 1950s America that never existed and those of the Vietnam War era who will never accept anyone with the "liberal" brand) or so dies off, we can't improve our numbers at the polls. A third was all for dumping any semblance of moderation and pushing the party to the left.

Frankly, I don't know what we should "do" other than to stand up for what is right, expose the wrongs in our society and government, and offer alternatives that advance the interests of our nation and our people. Anyway, I don't believe that this election is a result of "conservative vs. liberal." I'm convinced that the past four years, and the promise of four more of the same or worse, have been delivered to us by that old boogeyman, the media. Presented with the most secretive, deceptive and partisan presidential administration in recent history (or maybe EVER), the SCLM have gushed, hedged, acted as mouthpieces for Bush-Cheney, and generally abdicated their responsibility as a check to power. Consolidation and corporate media ownership and the end of the Fairness Doctrine have clearly spoiled what was once one of the great beacons of democracy, a free and independent press. Now we have 24/7 right-wing conservative talk radio and Fox News, countered only superficially and ineffectively by broadcast news (which is only an hour or two per day) and Fox's cable competitors, who are so busy frantically trying to imitate that success that they have a tendency at critical times to try to out-Fox Fox. In addition, there are Christian broadcasting networks and a nation filled with pastors using their pulpits to advance the Republican agenda. If you're subject to any of those myriad influences, how on earth are you supposed to get a complete and unbiased Big Picture?

The Republicans love to bash Michael Moore and other documentarians as well as the authors of Bush exposes, but they are practically the only voices for truth and progressivism left to the people. Frankly, as hard as they try, they can't come close to exposing the American people to the amounts of information we're fed by television and radio.

So what are we to do? As a marketing/communications professional, I'd first take a look at this issue -- figuring out how to get our message out and/or counter the misinformation bombarding our countrymen -- before changing the nature of the party itself. Especially when you consider that this whole thing just MIGHT be due to the fact that they (the other side) outnumber us, and that our real challenge is to turn more of Them into Us.

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