Bad news first:

• “NOW” with Bill Moyers is no longer. NOW will be hosted by NPR’s David Brancaccio. NOW had been sliding ever since Brancaccio came on board (I first noticed the goofy animations with sound effects and the occasional “What NOW?” segment after he came on; this segment always struck me as odd because I think it’s part of doing a good piece to point out to someone what they can do to avoid the bad things being described in the piece, don’t wait until a few segments later). My guess is that you can expect fewer in-depth reports on a range of subjects NPR is more comfortable bringing us (or not bringing us): virtually nothing on media consolidation (a staple of the former NOW show under Moyers) because that might raise the spectre of low-power FM which NPR worked to defeat when they felt it posed competition for their listener base; the rising cost of health care will be covered but without any mention about practical solutions including universal single-payer health care (if this manages to somehow leak out, I’m sure it won’t receive any serious analysis); interviews with right-wing or “centrist” “newsmakers” who want to inform us how social security should co-exist with investment plans (because co-existance makes eventual takeover easier to swallow).
• NOW will shrink to 30 minutes. This means less time for in-depth coverage of…anything, really. But this also means 30 minutes for PBS to fill with something else, something pro-corporate like another half hour of Tucker Carlson or that new talk show with Paul Gigot, who gets enough coverage from his articles in the Wall Street Journal and his time on PBS’ NewsHour (referred to more accurately as the LiarHour by Paul Mueth, co-host of News from Neptune). In case you haven’t seen Gigot’s PBS show, it’s a lot like “Washington Week in Review” with Gwen Ifill in that they both have on some journalist friends from the corporate (and during times of war, possibly embedded) press. They all cover what the White House tells them to and in the way the White House tells them to so they can continue to be called “journalists”.

If NOW were a community media production, I’d cut them a lot of slack. I know how community media runs on no money for the show (or whatever the hosts can afford to put in), and no staff–two big factors that determine how much of a show there will be. I host a community radio show called Digital Citizen every other week. I rarely have substitute hosts and I spend considerable time researching things to talk about on the show, recording phone interviews, editing other pieces, and I have no staff to speak of.

But PBS is nobody’s community TV station, it’s a bona-fide corporate-funded outlet for news and entertainment. Take a look at some of the heavy hitters funding the LiarHour alone: ADM (corporate criminal: pricefixing), SBC (telecommunications corporation), CIT (commercial finance corporation), and Grant Thornton (an accountancy firm).

Time will tell, of course, and I will happily watch NOW beyond my assessment period if I’m wrong. But NPR is untrustworthy and fails to cover items of genuine interest to my Digital Citizen audience which I could easily defend as worth anyone’s time.

Neither they nor NOW covered the Microsoft anti-trust case and its settlement (the largest anti-trust case in US history with a settlement widely viewed as insubstantial). There was no debate or discussion about what Microsoft did wrong from the perspective of one of their biggest competitors: The free software movement. The free software movement, now 20 years old, has provided the only real competition to proprietary software (including virtually all of Microsoft’s software). Occasionally we get to hear from the open source movement (offering their watered-down version of the debate which never includes software freedom but instead banks on elements monopolists can compete with handily like price, features, and technical correctness).

If your PBS outlet is like mine, you have the opportunity to see a lot of business shows (Business week, Wall Street Week with Fortune, Nightly Business Report, and various business segments on other PBS shows).

But there’s no coverage of this issue or technological-ethical issues to speak of on PBS, NPR, or NOW. Even during the media reform concern, there was no room for discussing free software from the perspective of not choosing between masters (Apple or Microsoft? Word or WordPerfect? Netscape or Internet Explorer? Eudora or Outlook? Which media mega-corp should run your TV and radio? Should we think beyond dividing up media the way we do–TV and radio are one in the digital age, right?). The Eldred v Ashcroft case got NOW’s attention, and Eben Moglen was briefly in one segment of that piece. But that was the closest NOW ever came to discussing the issues of intellectual freedom.

I promised you some good news, so I had better get to it. Check out these quotes:

“[I]f Kerry were half as radical a departure from the Bush agenda as the Republicans claimed, the case for voting for him would be a lot stronger.

But Kerry isn’t any of the things that the Republicans denounced him for being. He hasn’t rejected the Bush Doctrine of waging “pre-emptive” wars–in fact, he boasts that he will use more U.S. soldiers to win the “war on terror.” He isn’t about to “cut and run” from the U.S. occupation of Iraq–actually, he promises to carry out the occupation for oil and empire more effectively. He’s not for raising taxes to pay for “big government” spending programs–he’s for more tax relief for U.S. corporations (sure, in the disguise of a program to reward businesses that keep jobs in the U.S., but we’ve heard that one before, and should know by now that the trickle-down effect didn’t work, whether it was promoted by Ronald Reagan or the NAFTA-loving Clinton administration).”

This comes from the Socialist Worker on why voting for the lesser evil is harmful to long-term progress. Well worth reading, and please note the publication date as I am late to the table on their article, not they. Also, read Counterpunch. All cards on the table: I’ve contributed an article to Counterpunch.

Nothing I’m about to say hinges on your personal views on abortion or mine. This issue is about watching what the Democrats are up to.

Re-evaluating the position in both houses of Congress and the loss of another Presidential run has them mulling over which of their values to dump.

No matter whether you call it “Eye[ing a] Softer Image” or “Rethinking” abortion, the outcome is the same: Democrats, widely considered (among those who only think of two American political parties) as the pro-choice party, are now considering dumping their pro-choice stance in order to open the door for their former abortion opponents.

Go all the way, Democrats: run some high office candidates who are not pro-choice. This should help your would-be supporters get to know themselves better by making them choose which they value more: pro-Democrat or pro-choice.

If this comes to pass, ask your pro-choice friends who vote Democrat what they’ll do. Then ask them again in 3 years. Then compare their answers. When they change (and they almost certainly will change their tune because it’s easy to stand up for values you don’t have to defend, it’s another thing to decide which values to defend when some are in conflict), ask them why they changed.

My bet is that the person you ask will pick “voting pro-choice” now, and “voting for the Democrat to oust the Republican” later on.

Issues like abortion get a lot of coverage in elections. The Democrats courting non-pro-choice voters is one of those things that effectively reframes a national election in a way a bunch of outsiders (third-party/independent supporters, and the majority of non-voters) are denied the power to do.

In three years, even if both the Republican and Democrat are not pro-choice, a third-party or independent will run, support the pro-choice line, and still be precluded from participating in the national debates.

The only way this could get more interesting is if the Republican were pro-choice and the Democrat not.

You don’t hear this often from people you can point to as reputable sources of information—journalist Harvey Wasserman discussing the ongoing controversy surrounding the presidential vote in Ohio said: (emphasis added)

“Based on the exit polls, we have had statisticians look at the validity of the exit polls in Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio. We have had one statistician tell us that the odds on the exit polls being wrong in the three states, which they were, — either the exit polls are wrong or the ballot count was wrong — the odds against it are 150 million to one. There’s no way that George W. Bush won this election.“

That’s right—someone from outside the apparently ignorable “blogosphere” is saying this on Democracy Now!.

But is it significant? I’d say so, but not for the reason you might think.

If you’ve read this blog for long, you know that I find this interesting not so much for determining who is US President (that was settled by the two parties allowed to be heard on the matter, not by voters, and you’re not going to get vastly different policy from one of these candidates over the other). I find this interesting as a taste of what is not to come from those who call themselves “progressives”.

In two and a half years, do you think anyone will remember this? Do you think progressives will recall this and arrive at the reasonable conclusion that the Democrats are untrustworthy, that they can lose elections all on their own and be counted on to not do the work to defend voting rights?

Or will we get a list of lame reasons why the Democrats of 2008 (remember, even progressives don’t care about midterm elections where you have more voting power) are significantly different and this time for sure they’ll defend everyone’s voting rights by living up to what John Edwards told the country a few hours before he conceded the election to Bush:

“John Kerry and I made a promise to the American people that in this election every vote would count and every vote will count.”

Looking at Jacqueline Marcus’ summary of Eminem’s lyrics I have to wonder who wrote the headline and whether that applies to all those who voted for war, or just legislators. After all, if the US sends in all the Bush and Kerry voters maybe we’ll be able to stay there ten more years or fulfill the US’ dream of permanent Iraqi bases.

On the Friday, December 17, 2004 Democracy Now! (transcript) there is a discussion between two Democratic Party supporters: Prof. Manning Marable, Professor of History and Political Science and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and founding Director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies, and Donna Brazile, former head of the Al Gore campaign in 2000.

Some notes:

• Amy Goodman brings up corporate campaign financing at the top of the segment, but it is not discussed again. The single most important reason why the Democrats are circling the drain went virtually undiscussed. MoveOn.org, the Democratic Party front group, said that “we bought it, we own it [the DLC]” so the issue for them revolves around money, not a better take on the issues.
• This is a discussion, not a debate as it was pitched on the show, because the participants are not at odds over most of the issues being discussed. Goodman is also not provoking the discussion to explore where the two don’t agree.
• Brazile brought up Barack Obama in Illinois as though he’s a shining star of the Democratic Party receiving wild support from Illinois voters. For a significant amount of time, Obama had no competition in his race. When he ran against Alan Keyes, he was so far ahead he basically just had to not say anything obviously foolish to avoid defeating himself.
• Nobody cares about Obama’s support of “welfare reform” (taking money from poor people) or implicit support of corporate welfare reform (giving money to corporations). Not even so-called progressives.
• Inclusiveness in debates is never discussed—the Democrats and the Republicans collude to exclude a mutual threat from third parties and independents.
• Marable said “I think that clearly mainstream democrats represent, both ideologically and in terms of public policy, positions that are clearly centrist and relatively speaking to the left of the Republican Party.” yet most Democrats: voted for the USA PATRIOT Act, voted for giving the US President sole authority to make war anywhere without Congressional oversight, downplay universal single-payer health care, and taking corporate campaign funding. Most Democrats did nothing to help the Congressional Black Caucus speak on the floor of the Senate when questioning the Florida vote in 2000 (no Democratic Party senator signed their letter). Most Democrats did not sponsor the universal single-payer health care plan Kucinich used as the health care plan for his presidential campaign in 2004. Most Democrats could have co-sponsored it to show support for progressive legislation. The bill would not have gone to the floor for a vote, much less passed, but this shows how hard it is for Democrats to make signal votes.

Who will remember language like this (soon to be published in “The Nation”) in 3 years:

“Looking out over Washington, DC, from his plush office, Al From is once again foaming at the mouth. The CEO of the corporate-sponsored Democratic Leadership Council and his wealthy cronies are in their regular postelection attack mode. Despite wins by economic populists in red states like Colorado and Montana this year, the DLC is claiming like a broken record that progressive policies are hurting the Democratic Party.

From’s group is funded by huge contributions from multinationals like Philip Morris, Texaco, Enron and Merck, which have all, at one point or another, slathered the DLC with cash. Those resources have been used to push a nakedly corporate agenda under the guise of “centrism” while allowing the DLC to parrot GOP criticism of populist Democrats as far-left extremists. Worse, the mainstream media follow suit, characterizing progressive positions on everything from trade to healthcare to taxes as ultra-liberal. As the AP recently claimed, “party liberals argue that the party must energize its base by moving to the left” while “the DLC and other centrist groups argue that the party must court moderates and find a way to compete in the Midwest and South.”

Probably nobody at The Nation. Yes, this is the same Al From who said that Nader didn’t cause Al Gore to lose in 2000 (“The assertion that Nader’s marginal vote hurt Gore is not borne out by polling data. When exit pollers asked voters how they would have voted in a two-way race, Bush actually won by a point. That was better than he did with Nader in the race.”), but that is quickly pushed aside by true Democratic Party loyalists to favor blaming Nader for Gore’s not taking office. After all, we’re supposed to forget the tens of thousands of Democrats in Florida who voted for Bush in 2000 and had their votes counted (unlike the disenfranchised Florida voters who still can’t vote there). And we’re also supposed to forget that it wasn’t Nader’s job to help elect Gore. Gore and Nader were opponents, not running mates.

In January 2005, you’ll be able to read “Debunking Centrism”, an article which represents a serious turn of affairs for The Nation, which now finds it comfortable to challenge the Democratic Party on taking corporate cash and not providing universal single-payer healthcare.

It wasn’t that long ago that this same magazine criticized Nader (who was stumping for the things progressives allegedly want) and encouraged him to not run in 2004. Nader, correctly, stayed in the race in part because the Democrats did not have the courage to seriously challenge the Republicans on important issues of the day (including the invasion and occupation of Iraq, not supporting universal single-payer health care, standing up to corporate crime, fraud, and abuse).

Don’t let articles like “Debunking Centrism” fool you—when push comes to shove, and there’s an election to talk about, these progressives will stand behind the Democrats no matter where the Democrats want to take them.

Right now you’ll be able to find lots of left-leaning people criticizing Kerry and the Democrats. There is no election in front of them (even these self-styled progressives don’t care about midterm elections where voters have more power and often get to weigh issues of local importance—”think globally, act locally” and “all politics is local” be damned).

It’s not in vogue anymore to champion “catastrophic coverage” health care that doesn’t reach everyone, only reaches those it covers in emergency situations, and only covers part of the cost even then (like Kerry did). It’s not okay to echo “can’t cut and run” (like Kerry did), now one is expected to soundly and totally become anti-war and “support the troops by bringing them home” (good luck to the anti-war movement, which stunted themselves to be ABB for a year, by passing this one off. We all know roughly 3/4ths of you stood behind pro-war Kerry, even in gerrymandered districts where voters had the freedom to vote their conscience).

Don’t get used to those values, if you’re like a lot of so-called progressives in the US, you’ll be dropping them again in three years.

Voting rights and hearing from a broad spectrum of candidates are important issues, particularly to those who either lost their voting rights without good reason and those who feel railroaded into voting for the lesser evil.

Here are a few highlights from what the Democrats have done to help the registered voters justify becoming engaged in the voting process.

2000

In 2000, American investigative journalist working for the BBC Greg Palast had a showstopper story about the “scrub” lists of people whose voting rights were taken away from them. His news was featured prominently on his website, Democracy Now!, and his book “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” and in various articles, yet he couldn’t get on US corporate media to talk about it.

The corporate media airs the televised debates hosted by the Commission on Public Debates (an official-sounding but private organization which is run by the DLC and the RNC). The CPD took over the debates formerly run by the League of Women Voters. A majority of the US public wants to see Nader and Buchanan participate in these debates. Nader, who has a legally-held ticket, is forced off the campus where the debates are being held. He was trying to watch the debates via closed-circuit TV in another building. Nader sued the CPD and, on the eve of the trial, settled with the CPD, gaining a letter of apology and a donation to a voter project hosted at Harvard.

After the effects of the Florida vote “scrubbing” were known, the Congressional Black Caucus could not find one senator to sign their letter inquiring about the Florida vote. You probably saw Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 where CBC member after CBC member went up to the podium to address the Senate but were gaveled off by none other than President of the Senate and Democratic Party presidential candidate Al Gore. If not one senator would sign, that includes Democrats Kennedy, Kerry, and Lieberman (who was running for Vice President at the time).

2002

In 2002, the Democrats ran Janet Reno for Governor of Florida. There was no discussion of voting rights nor did the Democrats work to fix the “scrubbing” situation. Many would-be Democratic Party voters were unable to vote for Reno. Reno lost the election and conceeded defeat to Bill McBride a week after the election.

2004

Still no action from the Democrats about voting rights in Florida. Greg Palast again warns that the 2000 “scrubbing” debacle isn’t over because the disenfranchised voters rights haven’t been restored. One would think that it would be easy to stand up for the disenfranchised when one isn’t in power—even if one is just another corporatist, why waste a chance to look progressive?

In Illinois, the Democrat-controlled state government allowed Bush to appear on the ballot by changing the law that used to require all parties nominate their candidates before the end of August 2004. The 2004 Republican National Convention was held after the Illinois state deadline, so the Illinois Democrats pushed back the deadline so that the Republicans could legally place George W. Bush on Illinois ballots. There is no indication that the Democrats would be so forgiving to any independent candidacy or alternative party.

Again, the DLC works with the RNC to control the only debates the President and Vice President candidates are allowed to participate in. George Farah’s organization, Open Debates, published leaked documents which confirmed the details of the arrangements for the debates including room temperature, the number of writing implements made available, and mandating that the questions asked by members of the public would be completely scripted and made available to Kerry and Bush in advance. These debates would feature only Kerry and Bush, despite other candidates which could theoretically get enough electoral votes to win the presidency. NOW with Bill Moyers runs a scathing criticism of the CPD in an interview with George Farah. After one of the CPD debates, NOW runs a pair of two-way debates between Michael Peroutka of the Constitution Party and Ralph Nader (running as an independent), and Michael Badnarik of the Libertarian Party and David Cobb of the Green Party. C-SPAN also runs a debate featuring Cobb, Badnarik, a Socialist candidate, and Peroutka. Unlike the CPD debates, neither of these debates featured candidates that largely agreed on all of the major issues of the day.

After the Kerry-Edwards campaign told us they wanted every vote to count and that they wanted every vote to be counted, they conceeded defeat to George W. Bush. Ohio’s recount effort were lead by a joint effort between the Libertarians and the cash-poor Greens who somehow raised over $100,000 to learn the efficacy of the voting machines used there. On Democracy Now!, Democratic Party supporter Jesse Jackson says that it wouldn’t take much money to help out with this recount effort. The Democrats, meanwhile, continue to sit on over $50M left over from the Kerry-Edwards campaign. The Democrats have yet to foster any grassroots campaign (a charge regularly levelled against the Greens and Nader).