DailyKos Post is Great, but Recount Problems will lead to nothing unless

[EMunster]

...it becomes part of MSM. Not a new thought. Just that the DailyKos diary http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/16/103837/16 is so satisfying, but what pressure is there for Ohio to follow the law unless they know they're under national scrutiny. The court in Ohio could just interpret the law in a way that will dismiss all of this otherwise. Right and wrong and THE LAW are not solid these days. For example all you have to do is recount ALL the violations of law, international and domestic, that the Bush administration have gotten away with. That will happen in this case unless the sense of outrage over what's happening in Ohio becomes truly national. The only way for that to happen is through the mass media, repeatedly.

But despite the disturbing recount problems, there is still NO ONE covering it...no one except DU, sites that are parties questioning the vote, and a few diligent liberal sites that orbit around DU. The BIG message out there, the predominate one being pumped out hour after hour is a recount GOING SMOOTHLY, or the discounting of problems...

google recount+ohio+problems
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d&q=recount+ohio+problems&btnG=Search+News


The stories the Kosdiary collected should have led to alarming articles out of Ohio. But zip.

I don't have any suggestions. Everyone here seems to be contacting as many media people as they can. I'm just awed by the news lockdown.

[suston96]

1. The Media?

Which media in the Ukraine got thousands of Ukrainians to assemble and stay in Kiev Square for weeks in the bitter cold, until their demands were met?

Which media over there got the Supreme Court to order new elections?

Which media got Parliament to change the election laws to protect that new election ordered by the Court?

Mass-media? Forget it!

This internet is the only mass-media that will help us to both "peacefully assemble" and make our demands to our Supreme Court and to our "Parliament" - our Congress.

No, not the despotic Republican Congress in Washington, but each individual member of that 535 person Congress (most of which is elected every two years).

We may not be able to stand out in the cold for three or four weeks but we can flood that Congress and yes, even that reclacitrant mass media with e-mails until they are drowning in them.

Fix this election system NOW! Tell them! Or we will find a way to change this government that has failed to protect our precious right to vote!

"The right to vote - without which all other rights are illusory!" (Hugo Black)

[EMunster]

2. But you had an overwhelming population in the Ukraine that did not rely on

their MS-state-M for truth. Put another way, the internet is their MSM. Here,in the U.S., it's far more mixed. It'd be great if the majority looked to the internet -- and particular sites for most of their news (like DU). But people are skeptical here, and that includes of some of the information coming from the internet. And unlike the Ukraine, the vast majority still do get most of their information from TV. They're still taking their spin from it. And the spin now is NO STORY predominately (There have been several threads here about the otherworldly experience of telling even democratic friends about what's going on -- and they have no idea what's going on...and there's this terrible moment when you start going over the information that you do sound like a conspiracy theorist). As mentioned above, where there is reporting about ohio, the story is predominately "no problems" and its only a story by a corner of the internet. And that is unfortunately true. (Not a word on Atrios and every other popular liberal site, with only a toe-hold on Kos in the Diaries. But the audience, again, is small.)

I agree that the internet is for now the only way...but we still need to somehow light a mass fire that'll create a mass movement. We're counting on the courts or Congress (Jan. 6th) to save us...but they're under a lot of pressure not to, so the only way to make sure that do what is right by law is to make sure they feel the eyes of millions and millions on them. That's not going to happen unless the outrage from this corner of the internet spreads to and is sustained through the mass media.

That's not to say it can't happen. The mass media needs a reason to counter the pressue no to report it. They now have to be worried about being "Rathered" to the list of pressure. If no court is going to help bring legitimacy to the charges, that's not going to happen; if the press isn't alarmed by the stories and the charges of the suits, the courts might do nothing. I'm still hoping for a hero on either side to emerge.

[EC]

3. Maybe we should start hitting the Canadian Press

to help us out. Maybe really embarrass the U.S. media into action...Canadian members can you help us here?