stand, unchallenged? Or we send him a message, so he knows that not everybody who's WATCHING him is a dittohead.
I say go for it.
All's fair in love and war (and news - and "neww").
CALL HIM ON IT. DON'T GIVE HIM A FREE RIDE. DON'T MAKE IT EASY FOR HIM, or for ANYBODY on the Pox "news" channel.
Here's my suggestion, humbly but earnestly submitted:
Any time, and I do mean ANY time you hear some wrong-winger or wrong-winger in sheep's clothing, like a judy woodruff or paula zahn or wolf blitzer or joe scarborough or tweety or george will or ANY of those pundit types, go into thermonuclear war mode (hey, the republi-CONS would do no less if they felt they were attacked). STORM them with angry emails, faxes, letters, phone calls. SAME THING for anything you read in any newspaper, magazine, weekly, or online whatever. RESPOND. And do so QUICKLY. RAPID RESPONSE is EVERYTHING. They should know that whatever it is that they're trying to do to tear down Howard Dean will NOT be tolerated.
Like, for example, your dog keeps trying to jump on you when you want him to stay on all fours, do you keep letting him do it with no behavior correction, or do you give him a firm, loud "NO!" immediately upon the offense, so the dog will connect the two? When you're trying to potty-train your kid, is one time enough to take him or her to the potty, just assuming he/she will get it instantly, or is it something you need to do over and over and over and over until it finally sinks in?
Same thing with this.
And not only that, but...
I posted this in the Jeff Gannon QUITS thread - in the context of - well, we outed this one guy, but in the grand tradition of you-see-one-cockroach-on-the-wall-it-means-there-are-thousands-more-behind-the-woodwork, we DO have to be aware that there are others. Just as it's REEEEEALLLLY easy for bush to boast about all the al Qaeda leaders depicted on those playing cards who have been arrested or killed - uh - excuse me, but you don't think for one instant that there aren't hundreds of others who've streamed in to take their places? Funny, they never mention THAT. Anyway, the best thing to do, I think, is to UNDERSCORE, as ruthlessly and relentlessly as possible, that you are ONTO THEM and you won't let go until they start doing their jobs and start telling the truth. So I sugggest the following strategy (in response to a poster who called his satellite company to complain about the fraud being perpetrated, in this Jeff Gannon contest):
Follow up to the company with a paper letter. If, by any chance, you got the name of the fellow you talked to, send it to him ALSO.
I say ALSO because at the bottom of your letter, make sure you CC: it to a number of other people:
This company's competitors. An Eliot Spitzer (NY attorney general) type if you have one even remotely near you or your state level, your local newspaper(s), perhaps a larger regional newspaper, your local news radio station(s), your local TV station(s), your congressman/woman, your two senators.
Yes, I know it's a lot of work. Mostly Xeroxing. And, yes, postage. But isn't it worth the price of one visit to the snack bar or the latte counter? Emailing this won't do that much. People don't always pay a lot of attention to emails and they're easily deleted so nobody else has to know. This way, a LOT of other people know and see this. Furthermore, a paper letter can get copied and posted on the bulliten board in the lunch room or passed around among those of like mind, who might - just might - be motivated to show some guts on their own. You MUST figure that if you feel this way, there HAVE TO BE many others who do also, but just haven't had the time or the inclination to do something about it the way you have.
I read an article (posted here, once upon a time) about a lady who participated in an anti-war rally in New York City during the run-up to the Iraq war (so this was, obviously, awhile ago). She later read, and got ticked off by, the coverage of said rally in the New York Times. As expected, they low-balled the crowd-size estimate. She knew the truth because she'd been there and seen its far-larger size for herself. So she complained. Here's how: She wrote a letter to the Times. But she didn't stop there. She CC:ed it to several departments at the Times, I believe LTTEs, news desk, president of the company, and the reporters responsible for the actual story. And she didn't even stop THERE. She further CC:ed that same letter to the main competition of the Times (the Washington Post) AND, I believe, to Editor & Publisher or some such publication/website that's seen by A LOT of news people from all over - so, in effect, a WHOLE LOT of people, including its competitition, could see and enjoy that the Times was being outed for lousy reporting. There was a correction printed almost immediately.
If this woman had merely sent one little little-guy complaint, it would have been seen for the weight and influence it had - one little piece of paper from one litte-guy type who didn't have much clout. She made it a WHOLE LOT beefier and more effective.
Here's the thread this was in, originally:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... 
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
