It's the literal control which comes with literal ownership that counts the most. It is not that the (broadly defined) left in the United States lack potential TV show hosts and talents that can easily compete with Reagan and O'Reilly in mass appeal. Reagans and O'Reillys get to dominate TV discourse because those who support them own and control networks, stations, bandwidths, not because left-wingers are less attractive than them.
At 8:32 AM -0600 12/3/02, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
>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.
You can't accuse me of mediaphobia or "a fear of the responsibility that would accompany actually winning"; I've specifically criticized the latter here, I've kept posting to LBO-talk and other left-wing listservs what I think of as useful resources -- especially films -- that organizers and activists can exploit, and I've proposed several concrete things that left-wing journalists can do for the anti-war movement and that movement organizers and activists can do to get the word out.
I've also already discussed the need for a "liberation news service" with full-time left-wing foreign correspondents, a left-wing daily newspaper (even more important than TV, actually), etc., costly as it is to create and maintain them:
***** Subject: Re: new newspaper From: J Cullen (jcullen at austin.rr.com) Date: Sat Mar 30 2002 - 16:21:20 EST
> >That's encouraging, but what comes out bi-weekly is not so much a
>>newspaper as a journal. How much would it cost to put out _War
>>Times_ daily?
>>--
> >Yoshie
As the editor of a twice-monthly journal, I can testify that the main problem in trying to put out a daily (or a weekly) is circulation. It takes a week to 10 days or more for a periodical to make it across the country by the US mail. You can express ship copies to regional mail processing centers around the country, as the newsweeklies and national dailies like the Wall Street Journal and the Christian Science Monitor do, but that is expensive. War Times could try to put out a daily edition on the Internet at a relatively modest cost, however.
-- Jim Cullen The Progressive Populist
<http://squawk.ca/lbo-talk/0203/2997.html> *****
The JCP still has a daily called _Akahata_ [The Red Flag] -- with the circulation of about 700,000, I think. Italy has _L'Unita_, _Liberazione_, and _Il Manifesto_.
At 8:32 AM -0600 12/3/02, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
>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").
I agree, but to get broadcast live internationally, our enemy would have to screw up as spectacularly as the Clinton Administration did at the Ohio State University in 1998:
***** A political system in crisis 21 February 1998 By the Editorial Board
The February 18th "International Town Meeting" at Ohio State University was a political debacle for the Clinton administration. Intended to demonstrate popular support for the impending air war against Iraq, the meeting instead revealed widespread disquiet about a new military assault, as well as resentment and suspicion toward the government and the media.
Neither the White House operatives and CNN officials who staged the event, nor the three top foreign policy aides who defended the government's war plans, were prepared for the sometimes loud and often pointed opposition expressed by sections of the audience. The White House was apparently so confident that its town meeting--properly vetted to screen out embarrassing questions--would project the "right" image, it chose CNN to broadcast the event, knowing that the network's global range would reach Saddam Hussein's headquarters. A measure of how badly it miscalculated was the decision of the regime in Baghdad to rebroadcast to the Iraqi public excerpts of the program, showing questioners challenging the Clinton administration officials....
<http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/feb1998/leadf20.shtml> *****
They will never make the same mistake again, though.
Folks can also riot, setting fire to cars, throwing beer bottles at cops, etc. -- as OSU football fans regularly do after games -- and make broadcast TV, but that's not what you have in mind. TV (with minor exceptions of occasional programs on C-Span and PBS) basically exists to specifically exclude reasoned left-wing discourse and peaceful left-wing demonstrations. It's a medium geared to sex, violence, and advertisement. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>