> Yes. Preaching to folks who don't even know there is another choir is a
> worthy pursuit.
>
> BTW- This morning I brought boxes of Nations, Index on Censorships, Extra,
> Progressive Populist, etc,etc., to the library give-away day in the little
> city I live in, 10 minuites southe of Atlanta. I then preceded to mention
> this to 6 or 8 people I ran into while doing errands. Except for a young
> poly-sci major at the drugstore, there was an air of fear and loathing in
> the way my news was received. I think a lot of people are instinctively
> afraid to find out what's really going on. I was reminded of the time when
> an old boyfreind of mine was a history major at GA State and his prof told
> him that hanging out with a lefty would lead to nothing but trouble. Or
> something like that. Wierd.
I wonder too. My cubicle mate believes so far as I can tell the damndest things, and I haven't quite figured out where he gets his ideas from, nor the emotional source of his commitment to his ideas.
I have been noting various inaccuracies in the NY Times, over and above those misinterpretations the EPI catches in Reading Between the Lines ( http://www/epinet.org/ ). I was impressed with the NYT's trivialization of Soros's testimony -- it was reduced to one line giving the impression that Soros's main pitch to the House Banking Committee was to better fund the IMF. Absolutely no mention of the instability of globalized capital.
My cubicle mate is quiet and unprepossessing. He is a pleasure to watch at work because of his great skill. He is usually heads down but once in a while he comes up for fellowship.
In the course of conversation I mentioned that I have been finding more and more inaccuracies in the NY Times. He said "It's a, uhh, Yankee newspaper." as I watched him pick his words so as not to insult me (he suspects I'm a "lib'rul"). I said it's a conservative newspaper, and 100% Republican. He became visibly upset, and forcefully denied that the NY Times was either conservative or Republican.
Now, I know he never reads the NY Times, so how would he know? I don't think he reads even the local Dallas Morning News except for ads, and he believes that the DMN is "lib'rul" too. Perhaps he gets his ideas from Rush Limbaugh. He takes lunch late on purpose so that he can listen to Limbaugh on his car radio, who is on air at 1:00pm Dallas time.
"But David" I protested "You don't read the NY Times. I do. So how can you say that?" He is polite and does not like to argue so there was no answer. Then the thought occurred to me that his misimpression of the NY Times must be left over from the 60s and civil rights and integration. So I said "You must be thinking of the NY Times's support for civil rights and integration back in the 60s." I lived in Houston at the time and I remember very well the vitriol that the "lib'rul media" was treated with in those times.
He became even more visibly upset. He cut off the conversation abruptly with the excuse that he had work to do.
I think I had hit home. These weird ideas have something to do with race and civil rights. Limbaugh does not give him his ideas, but confirms his feelings, or he wouldn't listen to him.
Once, somebody told him the media is "lib'rul" and he clings to the notion. Who was that somebody? I'm now working on the suspicion that it was the Southern churches. Basically, throughout the South, it is the fundamentalist churches -- the Baptists, Church of Christ, and much worse that inform folks, not the papers nor even TV. Gingrich's ascendancy is based on the alliance between the Republicans and the Southern churches. Or so I guess.
I'm waiting for the chance to test my guess on David.
-- Those are my principles, and if you don't like them, I have others.
--Groucho Marx