Reply #88: Point taken .. but [View All]

[Shoq]

<<your gripe is like cursing a newborn baby because it can't recite War and Peace, or it can't get up and run a mile in under one minute 2 days after being born. >>

I have made that argument among the dittos for days. But that doesn't mean I fully believe it.

I have watched hundreds of "newborn" efforts come forward in my lifetime, and those that looked like they would never walk, never did. This is too important to wait around for the kid to fall on its face. Because if it does, you will NEVER see another expensive effort to create liberal talk radio in your lifetime. Never. And we NEED ONE, desperately. And if this fails, it will be sudden, and they won't give a damn what the folks on DU have to say about it. They will be like the Baltimore Colts slipping out the back door in the middle of the night. "Gosh, sorry.. but you know, we just cant lose money like that and stay in business."

And I can hear the cacophony on the left already, crying about how it's a shame that anything good has to be commercial. Yes, it is too bad. But that's part of the PROBLEM. Our entire system has become dysfunctional due to a disproportionate emphasis on commerce, personal gain, and endemic GREED throughout the culture.

And in that climate, the Republicans and their religious right puppet masters exploit our inability to do anything well. Until Move-On came along, there was not a single meaningful force that could orchestrate a BIG MESSAGE from the left in this country. And that has to counter a $2 million a week media machine run by the GOP when NOT in election mode. Ever notice that the minute ANY story breaks, the ENTIRE GOP and all their mouthpieces speak with one voice, and one message? THAT's why they succeed. Not because their message is very good, but because their messengers are unified, dedicated and EVERYWHERE. And they are armed with well written talking points, Astroturf, late night comedy material fodder, and an Internet propaganda machine that make Goebbels and Hitler look like amateurs when it comes to mass manipulation with the big lie.


And what does the left have? Move-on. A great organization, already associated with the far left (by a well orchestrated GOP campaign to paint them that way), and thus, already relegated to the fringe in the minds of most moderate Americans stuck in the ideological middle. The all important middle. The middle that will WIN elections. The middle which the GOP has become most adroit at leveraging as needed with whatever spin will work.

Look at the past 2 weeks. They were able to completely neutralize Dick Clark by sheer force of numbers. They were all over it in a matter of hours. The media has become rather simple to play, and they play them very well. After all that dirt, Bush's poll numbers WENT UP!

To you, AA might be a pretty little child who MIGHT grow up to be somebody. TO me, it's a vitally needed genius that could save the world--or at least our country-but which is already at risk of being still born.

We can't afford to have it fail. "Griping" about it's failings early on, might have a far more important impact than joining the melody sung by a chorus of those who WISH it well. I am among them, to be sure, and have been since the concept first surfaced. I simply want the music to be a LOT better, a lot louder, and a see a lot more people swaying to it.

<<Right now, Randi is doing her pit-pull from Brooklyn routine. I love that passion. We need a LOT more of it.>>