On Monday, December 2, 2002, at 11:04 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>> At 7:49 PM -0600 12/2/02, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
>>> First a fact: The enemy owns, and will _always_ own the TV stations.
>>
>> defeatist. you've just written off the bulk of mass media. if the
>> enemy can own it, so can we. it just takes work.
>
> Doesn't it take money, rather than work, to own the TV stations,
> though?
>
> WW/IAC/ANSWER seem to be able to get all the anti-war rallies they
> organize covered by C-Span. Work does pay off sometimes, but the
> payoff is still tiny, and getting covered by C-Span doesn't even
> compare to owning networks, stations, bandwidths, etc.
> --
> Yoshie
>
well, i have to admit, when i first read carrol's post, i heard "own" metaphorically rather than literally--which, btw, appears to be the way carrol meant it--and that conditioned my response.
otoh, i'm still not sure that money and work are so mutually exclusive that it's impossible. i begin to wonder if mediaphobia is a symptom of leftist purism or of a fear of the responsibility that would accompany actually winning. i'm not arguing, btw, that the use of mass media is the cure to all that ails left organizing. just seems to me like it's better to put the enemy to good use and recognize, as in all organizing, that you have to meet people where they are (or, as so many of us say, "where they're at").
j