The subject of my diary today is in response to the massive right wing noice machine that dominates the AM dial and cable. With the Citizen's United decision and the very chilling effort to change the way the internet works, I am afraid we are entering a very dangerous period in our nations history.
I fear that we will be victimized by rank propaganda outfits of the worst kind.
The current iteration of movement conservatism and the media empire that gives it it's voice did not suddenly appear. It was a deliberate effort, starting in 1964 after Barry Goldwater's landslide defeat, to build an infrastructure to promote radical right-wing conservatism.
We may want to consider our own long-term strategy to give the truth an equal platform.
In 1971, the infamous Powell Memo was leaked to Jack Anderson, a liberal syndicated columnist, entitled "Attack of American Free Enterprise System".
Here is a portion of the analysis of this from Reclaim Democracy
Though Powell's memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration's "hands-off business" philosophy.
I strongly urge reading the Powell memo, also referred to as the " Powell Manifesto". The same kind of urgency that is the tone of that memo is something I read every day here (obviously with an end game that is very different). As a matter of fact, one could take the Powell Manifesto and substitute "right wingers", "tea-baggers", whenever they use the terms "communists", "socialists", substitute Glen Beck with their villain, Ralph Nader, and change the focus from business friendly policies to social justice and economic fairness, and it would basically read like your average daily kos action diary (actually, Ralph is sometimes a villain here too, but let's leave Nader out of this discussion, please).
But here is what we on the left are faced with. The reality is that rich liberals generally don't fund left leaning media efforts (like Air America) and the reason is simple. Right wingers fund their media empire because they know that they will get a return on their investment by helping elect more republicans. Rich liberals would just be doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They don't get a financial return. That is partly why, with the exception of George Soros maybe, rich liberals don't generally pony up to fund liberal media.
We are going to have to do this ourselves. More on that later.
The Reclaiming Democracy had this to say (emphasis mine):
Most notable about these institutions was their focus on education, shifting values, and movement-building - a focus we share, though usually with contrasting goals. One of our great frustrations is that "progressive" foundations and funders have failed to learn from the success of these corporate institutions and decline to fund the Democracy Movement that we and a number of similarly-focused organizations are attempting to build. Instead, they overwhelmingly focus on damage control, band-aids and short-term results which provide little hope of the systemic change we so desperately need to reverse the trend of growing corporate dominance.
We see depressingly little sign of change. Progressive institutions eagerly embrace tools like the web and e-mail as hopes for turning the nation in a progressive direction. They will not. They are tools that can and must be used to raise funds and mobilize people more effectively (and we rely on them heavily), but tools and tactics are no substitute for long-term vision and strategy.
I completely agree, and probably the poster child of this is the Air America debacle.
Now the failure of Air America is certainly complex. One of the reasons has to do with the reason the Democrats lost the mid term elections. Air America fired or marginalized their most outspoken hosts due to lack of spine. Air America was also badly mismanaged. But they were also fighting the infrastructure that Powell advocated for and was eventually built, the same infrastructure that spent billions of dollars to defeat democrats. As one example, and with a few exceptions, Corporate America REFUSED to advertise on Air America's programs.
Air America started off doing very well. That scared the shit out of the right wing. Randi Rhodes consistently beat Rush Limbaugh in their head to head slot in those few markets where there was a choice. Then some real dumbasses got a hold of the reigns, and it gradually went downhill (in fairness to Danny Goldberg, the article to which I link he actually makes some good points, and I encourage everyone to read it, but also read the comment section were he gets torn a new one for his part in AA's demise).
Since 2006, the corporations who own all the media have been replacing liberal talkers with sports talkers all over the country, even in liberal cities and towns, and even when the market is already saturated with sports talk. Is it because they are not successful shows? No! It is because they are liberals. New York City, arguably one of the bluest big cities in the country, does not have a single liberal talk show on the AM dial. Not one! The only liberal talk in Chicago is a low-watt WCPT on AM 820. After 5pm, you can't hear it. Los Angeles has a couple of low watt AM liberal talk stations.
The right wing media empire doesn't have that problem. They have their own gaggle of wingnut welfare queens. The National Review Online, according to the Doughy Pantload himself loses millions of dollars a year. But Corporate America continues to fund them. Does anyone honestly believe that the Pig Man, Rush Limbaugh, earns the $28,000,000 or so he is paid for the networks that air his show? Of course not. He is there to carry the water of Corporate America. Same with Hannity. Same with Beck. Same with O'Reilly.
I am just a software developer. Admittedly, I don't have any expertise in media. But I do know this. We kick the right wing's ASS on the intertubes. Starting with the very successful fund-raising Howard Dean was able to accomplish mainly through the internet, the left has shown it is very good at using this medium to raise funds. President Obama, to his tremendous credit, took some of the things from the Dean campaign, tweaked and honed them to raise enormous amounts of cash and build tools to help his volunteers organize.
But it isn't enough.
I really hope that some folks with some expertise in new and old media can chime in with some ideas. I may be wrong to focus on the AM dial. But there has to be a reason why the right wing has paid billions to dominate that medium for the past 30 years.
I think a consortium of smart people with expertise could be formed to map out a long term strategy that includes AM talk, the internet, newspapers, journals, all forms of electronic and print media. Some of these are already in place. We have Ed Shultz, Rachel Maddow, Kieth Oberman, and Lawrence O'Donnel. We have Mother Jones and the Nation magazines. That is a start. But I am not sure we have the long term vision that the right has to use these effectively.
And it obviously isn't enough. If we thought this election cycle was bad, imagine what the next one is going to be like.
So here is one ACTION ITEM:
There are some things that can be done right now. We need to give our current crop of very good liberal talkers some love. We need to help this group not just stay afloat financially, but thrive. With the extra revenue they will have a larger platform. That is unfortunately how things work today.
I give 8.95/mo to Mike Malloy to download his commercial free podcasts. I love Mike! It is a very well produced show, which is amazing with such a small budget (his wife Cathy Bay is his producer and co-host, and she is also one of my heroes). Obviously I don't agree with everything Mike says, but his show is very funny, he comes in very well prepared, and he is an unapologetic liberal (has he told you today how much he HATES THESE PEOPLE).
I also give $10.00/month to both Democracy Now and our local community radio station, WFHB.
Don't like Malloy? How about Stephanie Miller? Her show is enormously entertaining. It should be the dominant morning talk show, it is that good.
There are others, Bill Press, Thom Hartman, Randi Rhodes, Sam Seder. There is also Bob Kincaid's Head On Radio. I have listened to all of these and they are really good shows.
If anyone can suggest others, feel free to put them in the comments and I will update this diary with them.
But the point is we have to do this ourselves! If all 250,000+ users would give 10 bucks a month to their favorite show, that is 2.5 million a month, and that is just daily kos. Think about if all liberals did the same. We are talking about lots of cash. For the sake of argument, let's say there are 50 million democratic voters (there are more than that, but I want the math to be easy), that is 500 million bucks a month to fund personalities and infrastructure. With some sort of consortium (kind of like a Chamber of Comerce for the left) to organize, I think this could be a very powerful start.
I have to run some errands, but I will be back later to check the comments and respond.
Here is the list of very ones I missed:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/...
update:
Well, according to the poll, we have up to 560.00 committed.
Hey, it's a start!
Here are some more (h/t OpinonGuy)
Erica Payne of Practical Progressive has been trying to do EXACTLY what you claim to want to do. We should build off what is already there....
http://www.practicalprogress.org/
Here is Payne's book:
http://www.progressivebookclub.com/...
Also, to offset Cato and Heritage, we have the Economic Policy Institute, featuring Dean Baker
http://www.epi.org/
Naturally, in terms of framings, you need to include:
George Lakoff
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Jeffrey Feldman
http://www.frameshopisopen.com
Finally, don't forget:
ThinkProgress
http://www.thinkprogress.org
Alternet
http://www.alternet.org
MediaMatters
http://www.mediamatters.org
Another Update
thanks to Alfonso Nevarez and the folks at diary rescue for including my diary.