The Right-Wing Express - How they stole the microphone

[Spiffarino]

Rob Stein, a Democratic activist and former Chief of Staff under Ron Brown at the Commerce Dept., has been going around the country with his PowerPoint presentation explaining how the RW managed to gain control of the government by gaining control of the message.

The following article from Alternet is amazing, insightful, provocative, and sometimes frightening. It makes clear how much liberals, progressives and perhaps even moderate Republicans must band together to stop the creeping fascism that is ruining America.

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21192/

Consider that the conservative political movement, which now has a hammerlock on every aspect of federal government, has a media message machine fed by more than 80 large non-profit organizations – let's call them the Big 80 – funded by a gaggle of right-wing family foundations and wealthy individuals to the tune of $400 million a year.

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To get their message out, the conservatives have a powerful media empire, which churns out and amplifies the message of the day - or the week - through a wide network of outlets and individuals, including Fox News, talk radio, Rush Limbaugh, Oliver North, Ann Coulter, as well as religious broadcasters like Pat Robertson and his 700 Club. On the web, it starts with TownHall.com

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...there is the conservative media machine, which operated at full power to get George W. Bush re-elected in 2004. Conservatives and their allies were able to magnify their message through a network of right-leaning TV and radio channels, including Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel, which provided Bush and Co. with a 24/7 campaign infomercial - for free. Here was a news network with more viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined, constantly repeating, often verbatim, the messages out of the White house and the Bush campaign.

[blm]

1. Imagine America had a real free press that cared about democracy.

.

[sandnsea]

2. Liberal Republicans

They support liberal values, they're Liberal Republicans.

Now I'll go read the article.

[Spiffarino]

3. Would have added that

...but the edit time has expired. Consider me corrected.

[sandnsea]

4. One person at a time I guess

It's my personal mission in life for the year. :)

[Spiffarino]

5. Proud to help

It's a small but important message to carry. And by changing their direction one at a time, the dominoes will fall where we want them to. So in that spirit...

"Yes, Virginia, there really are liberal Republicans."

[sandnsea]

6. lol

That's cute! Check this out. www.mypartytoo.com That's where we start I think.

I read the article. It's accurate and interesting. Except, didn't everybody at DU know all of this years ago? And how many people need to define the problem until we start doing something about it? Grrr.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

7. kick