andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> In my view. the media
> effect mainly works by keeping info from people who
> otherwise lack cheap or free access to ot (not
> includinf just money costs, but also effort).
Yes. What is fatally missing from all the whining and wailing about the stupidity of the populace is the sheer difficulty of living a life in capitalist society. And everyone as an isolated individual is somehow expected magically to "think things out for him/herself." One fundamental principle the lefitist agitator / organizer / theorist _must_ accept is that people have a right to be ignorant and to make bad political judgments, and that there is no correlation whatever between either intelligence and understanding or personal morality and understanding.
It's up to those lucky enough to have a history which broke them loose, at least a little bit, to organize themselves to create the conditions under which more can break through. And that means that leftists have to get rid of two notions: 1) That people have any obligation whatever to distrust the national leadership and 2) that merely saying the truth effectively is in itself of any good.
I get really tired at the endless compaints on this list about the ignorance of the populace. The bellyaching about "The Left" is merely a microcosm of the bellyaching about the populace as a whole. The latter ignores the conditions of life of the people they sneer at; the former equally ignores the extreme difficulties leftists face.
Carrol