Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Why Blogs Are Important
Charles, in the post below on the group of bloggers keeping tabs on the carpetbagging reconstruction going on after Katrina, discusses why blogs, even when they don't do original reporting of their own, are so important to spreading the news that matters most to us all. Specificially, Charles describes how a story that may see print once, in the back pages of a daily or an obscure periodical, can be brought to nationwide prominence through the efforts of the bloggers. In an age where the corporations that own and run the US media are working hand-in-glove to promote the Republican agenda, this helps to undermine the corporate state propagandists' efforts to form "the official story".
Here's yet another example:
As I mentioned a few days ago, certain self-hating Democrats and conniving Republicans are working locally to promote the idea that the victories of R.T. Rybak and Chris Coleman -- both liberal Democrats from the word "go" -- are somehow losses for both the DFL and the idea of progressive taxation. But, as this Downtown Journal article shows, Rybak's victory was likely due not to anti-DFL backlash, but anti-Police-Federation backlash generated by the incredibly sleazy anti-Rybak ads run by the Police Federation:
Rybak took particular aim at the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, saying months of attack ads backfired and turned off voters. The Federation ran “Anyone but Rybak” radio ads prior to the Sept. 13 primary and its President John Delmonico said then in a news release that parts of Minneapolis, “have crime and lawlessness approaching [that of] New Orleans,” referring to the post-Katrina chaos. The Federation’s endorsements may have hurt candidates more than it helped, Rybak said. He suggested it hurt Cara Letofsky, a police-endorsed DFLer who narrowly lost the University-area Ward 2 race to Green Party candidate Cam Gordon, 2,481 to 2,340. The Federation also endorsed Lisa McDonald, who lost in Southwest Minneapolis’ Ward 13 to Betsy Hodges and Marie Hauser, who lost to Elizabeth Glidden in the south-central Ward 8. “The Police Federation tipped the balance — but not the way they hoped,” he said.I'll say. But unless you read the Downtown Journal -- or Mercury Rising -- you'd never know about this.
You can lie, but you cannot hide.
: 11/17/2005 01:43:00 PM << Home
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