emphryio

Well I would have liked to respond to this sooner. I forgot to check for replies and it almost disappeared into oblivion.

First of all, apparently someone.....? did protest against CNN in Atlanta and Los Angelos today. So far the only way I know this is because CNN and CNN Headline News both devoted one sentence across the bottom of their screen to it over the course of half an hour.

I think on CNN the sentence was something like. "CNN protestors say, War isn't a game." Something like that.

But I have no idea how big this protest was. If anybody heard anything about the corporate mass media covering this protest, I would like to know what they said. (Beyond the "coverage" I just described.)

When I find out the actual details of this protest. I'll post them.

Now:

It's become a precedent even though it was based on a mistake.
It could be taken back, but certainly not with current judicial / political situation.
Sure eventually the Greens could get corrupted. But they don't seem to be at this time and while they aren't they could enact legislation that could make corruption far more difficult in the future.
Maybe there are different ways it could work. I'm referring to a vote where if your first choice doesn't come in first or second, your vote can be switched to your second choice, etc. This would completely remove the decision of voting for the lesser of two evils instead of who you actually want. The Greens support instant runoff voting. I've never heard the "establishment" mention it at all.
It appears so far that you've been right. But if the protests continue consistently, if they continue well after shock and awe, if they continue for years, they will have to keep running those sentences across the botton of their fucking screen. Eventually more and more people will start wondering just what the hell this "media protest" is all about.

Or not, but I still have my doubts that an appreciable fraction of people is going to get reached through the internet. I could be wrong about that. It does seem like awareness is increasing....(shrug?)

emphryio

Did you know 90,000 thousands voters were mistakenly denied the right to vote in Florida in 2000? And that.... I believe roughly 57% were black? And that 90% were democrat?
It's in Greg Palast's book, The Best Democracy that Money Can Buy.

Some horrifying things going on....

slept2long

No problem. I ain't the most on time poster myself but I am working on it now that I've figured out how to make my computer let me online.
Cool. I hope you find it. I am interested to hear what happened.

When did it become a precedent? Was it a lay reading of the original flawed document or was it a USSC case or something?

True. I think some of the legislation that needs to be past could be done so by citizen petitions. I am still looking into this for my state.

I have heard it before too. I remember now. It is a weird idea to me though. I guess I need to think about it for a while.

I wasn't right, the prpaganda model was. Remember the priest incident? One preist is killed in a worthy country and gets a ton of press and a bunch are killed in an unworthy country and get a couple lines. Same thing with political issues or anything else. At least that is how I understand it.

The protests in my opinion will sway more public than government opinion. Which way I can't say. Still if they continue forever the media will still not cover them properly IMO. Here, a few more people seem to understand the situation better it seems. Seems it's new people though not older posters changing there minds.

emphryio

Well got one more grand sentence off of CNN.

..they were also protesting against what they consider biased media coverage of the war. (While the TV shows some chaos in the streets of some big city.)

I still haven't got to hear exactly what really was going on.

admice

Related to all of this I have been looking more into what's wrong with America. There is so much institutionally wrong. Where do any of you suggest starting to change it (besides writing congress)? Felt overwhelmed yesterday. Maybe will have time to elaborate more later, but wanted som input from veteran activists. Seems like if we could improve media we could get populus aware of it all, then change, but i dunno.

slept2long

Admice, I think the first place to start is to implement public campaign financing of some kind. I can't even imagine the logistics of it but the playing field needs to be leveled in respect to having access to mass media sources that require $$$ to get airtime/ink. Aside from that I think the rest would take care of itself, eventually.

Loren Pechtel

I don't think it would be too hard.

1) Reduce the number of signatures needed to get on the ballot.

2) These signatures may only be gathered by *UNPAID* volunteers.

3) Every candidate that gets on the ballot gets $x/voter in the last general election in his area, adjusted for population change in the intervening time.

4) No other money may be spent, period.

fanny666

A few years back, there was a documentary film called "Deadly Deceptions" which was about GE and nuclear arms.

When activists took it to a local TV station, they refused to play it. So the activists got a big projector and used the side of the station's building as the screen. They played it over and over until people driving by started to notice, etc. and the station caved and played it.

We ought to do the same thing with pictures of mutilated Iraqi children.

"Show the face of 'Collateral Damage' or we will not stop."

In fact, I'm going to log off right now and start the ball rolling on that action in Denver.

slept2long

Loren, that's the kind of thing I am talking about. Do you know if anyone has ever tried to iron out the details involved in financing such a system? I've only heard it explained in loose terms like you used.

slept2long

Fanny, thanks for the Deadly Deceptions link. I hadn't heard of it before.