Most working people in America don’t have the time to pay close attention to the daily ins and outs of politics. What they know of the political system they hear from quick blurbs in passing on television news while they are busy providing dinner for their families, or what they hear on the radio in the car on their commute to and from work. More educated liberal Democrats tend to get more of this news from public radio, but for the average Southerner, this tends to come from talk radio.
More and more people are getting their news from social networking tweets on Twitter and Facebook, but unless they take the time to delve into the details of the story links, they will still only obtain a superficial outlook on public policy debates.
For those who take the time to find an independent journalist to follow closely, they will over time end up with a better understanding of how democracy works, the so-called “sausage factory” that is government.
One thing that I think tends to sometimes escape the understanding of the average American, who now tends to believe there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans, is the extent to which the party in power gets to set the daily agenda for what issues are brought up in public debates in Congress and state Legislatures. This is one of the most powerful tools any political party has to control what we all talk about on a daily basis, whether people fully grasp this or not.
At Occupy protest encampments across the country this week, the controversy that was all the rage had to do with the defense budget bill just passed by Congress. The paranoia was palpable, and for good reason, considering how the issue was covered by the mainstream, corporate news media — and the implications for protesters worried about being arrested and detained indefinitely without due process as they carry their protests into an election year in 2012.
While much of the debate over the policy on detaining suspected terrorists on domestic soil was probably lost on much of the country now in a shopping frenzy with only a week to go before Christmas, even at the Occupy Birmingham encampment downtown activists were not happy with President Barack Obama. One even suggested he was taking a look at voting for Mitt Romney, the Mormon from Massachusetts, “because at least he represents a minority.”
President Obama and the First Lady Speak to Troops at Fort Bragg
by Glynn Wilson
Bush’s illegal and ill-fated war in Iraq is finally over. All of the U.S. troops are coming home after eight long years.
It was the longest war in American history, although the news media is not covering the war’s end as much as it did the “Shock and Awe” campaign that started it all on March 20, 2003.
President Barack Obama marked the occasion in a low-key, solemn fashion, by saluting the troops upon their return at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, but with “little fanfare,” according to the AP headline.
The wire service did report that Obama never tried to declare victory in this war, as Bush did with a “Mission Accomplished” banner aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003. Although it is doubtful that story made the front page of many newspapers or the top 10 minutes of many local news broadcasts in this country. It is a war we wish would just go away quietly, and for good reasons. It was started under faulty pretenses based on bad intelligence about a non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction program on the part of Saddam Hussein.
“It was a war that (Obama) opposed from the start, inherited as president and is now bringing to a close, leaving behind an Iraq still struggling,” the wire service reported.
Alabama Democratic Party Executive Director Bradley Davidson responded Tuesday to comments posted by new state Republican Party chairman Bill Armistead blaming the local unemployment situation on President Barack Obama, rather than Republican Gov. Robert Bentley and the Republicans who now control the state Legislature and the state Supreme Court.
“This is what Republicans like Karl Rove, George Bush, and Bill Armistead do – they make stuff up,” Davidson said.
When President Bush took office and inherited one of the strongest economies in American history, we were well on our way to paying off the national debt. When Bush left office, our economy was hemorrhaging 700,000 jobs a month — and his $800 billion big-bank bailouts did nothing to help.
“Apparently Bill Armistead and Shana Kluck have nothing better to do than regurgitate whatever misguided talking points they get sent by the Republican National Committee,” Davidson said. “Unfortunately for them, their bosses in D.C. aren’t paying any attention to what’s actually going on in Alabama.”
Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman outside the federal courthouse in Montgomery
by Glynn Wilson
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman says if he is guilty of bribery and corruption for being the fourth governor to appoint HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy to a hospital regulatory board — in his case allegedly in exchange for contributions to an education lottery campaign — then Texas Governor Rick Perry could be “executed” for what he has done in that state.
Mr. Siegelman made the comment after a hearing on Wednesday requesting more information from the federal government to form the basis of an evidence gathering proceeding that could lead to a new trial for himself and Scrushy.
“If they can put me in prison for nine months for being the fourth governor to reappoint Richard Scrushy, they ought to be able to execute Rick Perry for what he did in Texas,” Siegelman said (see video below).
“There is a standard of justice that should apply across the board and I think the United States Supreme Court will see that and will apply the rule of law in this case,” Siegelman said, talking to the media in front of the federal courthouse in Montgomery after a three hour hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles S. Coody. “Rick Perry would be in prison today if this were the standard.”
A Lesson in New Web Journalism and Political Activism
Editor’s Note: In December, 2002, I was on the payroll of The New York Times National Desk operating from my duplex on Plum Street, two blocks from the Carrollton Avenue street car line in New Orleans, Uptown, when the Trent Lott story broke, bringing to an end to the rise in national politics of one of the South’s most prominent, conservative Republican Senators. Much has been made of this case study in the power of the new Web Press to influence both the traditional, national news media — and the direction of politics itself. This is my original contribution to this important story in the history of Web publishing, as well as the academic field of media influence on politics and public opinion. I publish it today because it is time.
“I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years either.”
— Mississippi Senator Trent Lott, Dec. 5, 2002
“On December 20, 2002, after significant controversy following comments regarding Strom Thurmond’s presidential candidacy, Lott resigned as Senate Minority Leader. In December 2007, he resigned from the Senate and became a Washington-based lobbyist.”
– Wikipedia
by Glynn Wilson
On December 5, 2002, about the time Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott was making the remarks that would bring him down at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party in Washington, D.C., I was in New Orleans sending an e-mail message to the brand new New York Times correspondent in Atlanta, David Halbfinger, pitching a story on the Alabama Ride to Freedom bus tour planned for January, according to my old Outlook Express e-mail archive. It goes back all the way to the 1990s, and is still on occasion a useful and reliable research tool.
Halbfinger and I never got to do that bus ride story together. But for the next few months, we would work on a number of stories. I also worked with the other more experienced Times correspondent in the South at the time, Jeffrey Gettleman, as well as Rick Bragg and a number of others. If either one of those guys had known what I knew about the history of Civil Rights struggles in the South, perhaps we could have done that bus ride story justice, especially since I was working a lot with photographer Spider Martin at the time. He was sitting on one of the most important collections of photographs from that era at his place atop the mountain in Blount County, Alabama, where I often stayed while working on stories in my home state for the Times and the Christian Science Monitor.
When the Lott story broke, it may not have caused a firestorm of publicity right away. But within only 15 days, Lott was gone and his rising political ambitions went stone cold dead.
Because of my academic research experience as well as the fact that I was one of the reporters who worked the story for the Times — in fact doing critical investigative work that was as important as anything done by the bloggers or television news in the battle — I have my own unique perspective on what went down and what it all means. But in part because I was a free-lance reporter for the Times and was never properly credited for my work on that story, along with many others, the academics in New York who used this story to make a name for themselves ignored my attempts to comment and provide some perspective for their research.
To me, it is an important lesson for bloggers trying to influence the mass media and public affairs — and for activists who are trying to change the country and the state for the better.
As we’ve seen repeatedly in public polling over the past year, no potential source for reducing the deficit is more popular than new tax revenue from wealthy Americans and large businesses, according to the Anzalone Liszt Research national polling summary.
The CNN/ORC poll found that 63 percent of Americans, including 62 percent of independent voters, believe that higher taxes for businesses and wealthy Americans should be part of the Congressional Super Committee’s proposal.
And while Republican Congressman John Fleming might say otherwise, families earning $250,000 a year or more clearly fall into the public’s definition of “wealthy,” as 60 percent of respondents in the NBC/WSJ poll felt that raising this group’s taxes was acceptable to reduce the deficit.
“Such findings demonstrate that support for President Obama’s recent tax reform proposals extend far beyond the Democratic base, as they earn strong backing from independents as well,” the public opinion survey experts say. “Just in case that data doesn’t demonstrate just how out of step with the public Republicans are in their opposition to raising taxes for the wealthy and big corporations, here is some more evidence.”
It is way too pretty on the porch this morning to be mad at anything or anyone. No matter who happens to occupy the White House or the governor’s mansion, or what morons serve in Congress or the state legislature, I have a roof over my head and food to eat, a little gas in the van, and I’m not in the path of Hurricane Irene making a fool out of myself on TeeVee.
On the other hand, I refuse to allow a few moments of quiet solitude to distract me from the mission at hand. The county I live in is in big financial trouble, and the state is not much better off. This country is reeling from one human catastrophe to another. And even though the U.S. is no longer rated triple A, the world still depends upon leadership from us.
But like a lot of commentators, I wonder if we are any longer up to the task. We seem to be a mixed up people now, so oblivious to the cause and effect of our problems as to defy our ability to craft solutions.
A couple of nights ago, I got a friend request on Facebook from someone in Brazil, who sent me a nice note and asked how things were going in the U.S. I jokingly told him all my friends were searching the world over on the Internet for somewhere to move when the shit goes down.
During the Bush years, we specialized in covering the politicization of the U.S. justice system as much as any news organization. Our archives are about the most comprehensive for anyone researching the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, and the original case against Richard Scrushy, which Glynn Wilson covered for The New York Times.
