Sep. 8, 2004

“If we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we’ll get hit again,” Dick Cheney said on September 7th, threatening the American public that if we elect Kerry and Edwards rather than Bush and Cheney, we’ll be attacked by “terrorists.”

But that statement was unambiguously intended to influence our votes by terrifying us. Cheney wants us to vote for him for fear that otherwise we and our loved ones will be subjected to random attacks. By the read more

Sep. 13, 2004

“Casualties are always sad, but I don’t think they should be shocking.”

Any doubt that the U.S. media has not yet recognized the disgraceful role it has played in promoting and covering Bush’s war ought to be put to rest by a forum held in New York City on September 9th. The forum was part of the annual convention of the Society of Professional Journalists, a series of events that showcased the media at its best and worst.

Gathered, appropriately enough, in read more

Sep. 20, 2004

If you live in the majority of the states in the United States, you’re being handed two candidates to choose from for president without much say in the matter from you. You have very little control over what Bush promises, and probably little capacity left to believe him anyway. And you, therefore, have little control over what Kerry promises, since he tends to shape his positions around Bush’s, either by agreeing with Bush entirely, by staking out a position slightly read more

Universal health care is favored by most Americans, but proposing to create it is deemed politically foolish. Restoring value to the minimum wage would meet with approval from the vast majority of us, but politicians who make it a priority are considered a little flakey. Investing in public schools is one of our top priorities, but we’re told the money’s just not there and that we should focus on offering children other choices — we have to be practical. Most of the money that read more

If you fail to ask substantive questions about what it will mean to people for each candidate to win, the slightest criticism of you by the candidates can result in thunderous applause, and you can end up looking shame-faced and horribly uncomfortable.

Don’t believe me?

Watch this clip from last December of Ted Koppel and Dennis Kucinich:

Or read this transcript:

KOPPEL: When you hear some of your colleagues here-you know, I get a little bit of a sense of sour grapes here, that if anyone else read more

October 2, 2004
A tight spotlight focused on Bruce Springsteen after he’d entered the stage in Philadelphia on Friday night and bent over his guitar without a word. And without a word he gave new meaning to the Star Spangled Banner. And on came the E-Street Band, and the stage lit up, and they gave new meaning to “Born in the USA.” They picked the tempo and the volume up a notch as they jumped into “Badlands” and gave a new meaning to every lyric. The sold-out read more

October 3, 2004
As Senator John Edwards trains for Tuesday’s debate, the best advice anyone could give him would be to bring his own questions. He should bring a list of topics he intends to talk about and a list of questions he intends to put to Dick Cheney, because if anything can be predicted safely it is that Gwen Ifill will slant her script in favor of the fat man.

Yesterday evening on PBS Ifill could be seen defending Bush’s debate performance. Which way she leans is never hard read more

Oct. 3, 2004
Inside the new National Museum of the American Indian, nextdoor to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., is an exhibit about an exhibit in which an American Indian lay on a display case surprising visitors by being alive and observing them. Visitors to the new NMAI may be surprised to find an entire museum alive. There is very little of the past here, much of current culture.

The American Indian Movement (AIM) has complained, in fact, that this museum does not tell the story of a read more

By David Swanson, ILCA Media Coordinator
Part of the Media Blackout series on underreported labor stories

You wouldn’t know it from reading, watching, or listening to the “mainstream” media, but many of the largest labor organizations in the United States have passed resolutions demanding that U.S. troops be brought home from Iraq and the war be ended. On July 19, the ILCA published an article on the media’s failure to cover this turn of events.

Back then the story was already read more

October 19, 2004

The Economic Policy Institute today released a report finding that investment in early childhood development can bring annual rates of return of 12 percent to the non-participating tax payers. The real rate of return that prevailed on the stock market between 1871 and 1998 was 6.3 percent. Are those eager to invest our Social Security dollars in a money-making venture paying attention?

How does investing in expensive educational, health, and nutritional programs for poor three- read more

Bernie was a funny bunny, but Bernie didn’t think so. He took himself very seriously.

Bernie lived in a town at the bottom of a big rocky mountain, and most of the other bunnies liked Bernie a lot, even if they did laugh at him once in a while. And the birds liked Bernie too, even though he had once tried to keep them out of the bunnies’ garden.

The garden was the center of the bunny town, and Bernie’s bunny hole wasn’t far from it. Mayor Michael’s hole was right next read more

Oct. 27, 2004

Kerry’s appeal to progressives is generally thought of as no more or less than the appeal a pumpkin would have if it could run: neither Kerry nor the pumpkin is Bush. I’d like to suggest another reason for progressives to support Kerry, one that does not require holding our noses.

Of course, parts of Kerry’s record are admirably progressive, and – unlike Bush – Kerry has a record of responding to public pressure (itself admirable in a democracy and an read more

By David Swanson, ILCA Media Coordinator
Part of the Media Blackout series on underreported labor stories

Single-payer health care is, according to numerous surveys, supported by a majority of Americans.i Few public policies are inspiring more activism and advocacy in the United States right now than single-payer health care at the national and state levels.ii Organizations are holding marches across major city bridges. Think tanks and foundations and labor unions are generating studies. Doctors, read more

Oct. 29, 2004
It’s a well known fact that the media sucks. Or is that merely a widely held opinion? I’d like to argue that it is a distinction that makes no difference, that opinion-free facts are the mythical creation of insecure epistemologists, that all the recent laments over the media’s becoming too opinionated are understandable but confused, that the corporate media has a powerful interest in the myth of non-opinion because it allows the expression of corporate read more

Nov. 3, 2004
Dear World,
Please be on the lookout for more bombs, debts, and global warming. It’s what we in the United States like to call “letting the healing begin.”

I know, I know, you thought there might be hope for us. You thought we might be ready to cross the bridge to the 18th century and stop letting religious bigotry run our lives. Even you British supposed that we might care about having killed 100,000 Muslims. Sorry to disillusion you on that one. We found it more read more

Nov. 5, 2004
Already the strategists are advising the Democrats to go to church more, hunt more, and become more like the Republicans. This strategy has, however, been pushed just about as far as it will go, and in a quarter century of trying has worked only for Bill Clinton, and then only with a lot of help from Ross Perot and a number of lucky breaks.

With over 40 percent of the country still not interested in voting despite massive Get-Out-the-Vote efforts, record turnouts, and endless lines read more

November 22, 2004
Those desperate enough to consider moving to Canada to escape a nation headed by George W. Bush may want to consider an easier option that could deny Bush’s Republican successor the presidency: moving to Iowa.

We spent upwards of $300 million trying to elect John Kerry ($241 million through the campaign, another $80 million through other organizations). We turned out every anti-Bush voter we could find. But there weren’t enough pro-Kerry voters to put Kerry over the read more

November 22, 2004
Part of the ILCA Media Blackout series on underreported labor stories
Bush’s success in reducing the value of the minimum wage in each of the past four years has wreaked havoc with the lives of millions of working Americans, but it does not exist as a media story.

The minimum wage loses value as the cost of living rises. Were the government to take action to partially correct for this loss in value, the media would cover that story, but would refer to it as “raising read more

December 8, 2004
Five hundred people who care about the future of the labor movement gathered at the City University of New York on December 2nd and 3rd to discuss what that future should look like.

There were some rank and file members in the crowd, but mostly it was made up of those who work for or write about labor. Perhaps the only points of universal agreement among the speakers and participants of the “Labor at the Crossroads” conference hosted by the Queens College Labor Resource read more

Media Outlets Refuse Union Advertising
Part of the Media Blackout series on underreported labor stories
By David Swanson, ILCA Media Coordinator, http://ILCAonline.org

Major corporate media outlets often reject advertising from labor unions. This means that the same outlets that will not cover labor for free, in many cases will not even sell working people 60 seconds of the public’s airwaves for hard-earned money.

Even people well aware of the media’s failings in covering labor issues read more