My first impulse is to say, "To hell with TV -- it's useless for organizing, so just try to get people to turn off their idiot boxes and get into real communication with each other." Given the choice between commercial networks, PBS, and cable, the economics of all of these media make it very difficult to get much penetration of left discourse into them. If there were a strong left already, it would show up in one way or another on all three, but it is very hard to come up with a reasonable strategy for using them to organize this left.
OTOH, it's rather useless to try to get Americans to turn off the idiot box -- it's about the only public square they can relate to at this point. So we just have to keep plugging away, getting as much exposure as we can wherever possible. I think we all recognize that there is a considerable latent discontent with the status quo in the population, but the quandary we are in is that we don't have very good ways of bringing that latent impulse to revolt to the surface and turning it in a left direction. TV personalities such as Moyers, Donahue, Moore, and Stewart (and maybe even Oprah, Mr. Rogers, and Big Bird, what the heck) can all contribute a bit to this effort now and then (whether they consciously intend to or not), but obviously we can't pin very much of our hopes on any of them.
I agree with those who complain that Moyers is dull. Despite my sympathies with what he is trying to communicate, I can rarely watch more than about 10 minutes of him without nodding off. Where's Jim Hightower these days? Or Molly Ivins? They can at least keep people's eyelids open.
Basically, I am very suspicious of anyone who tries to fabricate a single, simple strategy for organizing a left. It will take many kinds of activities, on and off TV, which can't be summarized in any 3-page manifesto.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ "Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others." -- Groucho