Community Radio: It all comes down to Alabama~edit

It's the media. Until and unless we (liberals/progressives/democrats) can counter the right wing talking chatter heads Alabama will continue to be the reddest of the red states. I am forwarding the following action alert from Color of Change.org ~Redeye

The United States Senate is on the verge of passing landmark legislation that would put the power of radio into the hands of thousands of local communities like yours — giving them power to create and broadcast the content they care about and generate.

But your senator, Jeff Sessions, may be the one lawmaker blocking this bill.

Can you place a quick call to Sen. Sessions, and tell him to stop blocking the Local Community Radio Act?

Here's his number:


(202) 224-4124, or (251) 414-3083 after 5pm EST
And here's a sample script you can use:

I'm calling to ask Senator Sessions to stop blocking the Local Community Radio Act. We need more local radio stations in Alabama, covering the issues that matter to our towns and cities."

Then can you send us a quick email at radio@colorofchange.org to let us know that you called?

Radio matters: Twice as many people get their news from talk radio as from the TV evening news — on ABC, NBC, and CBS combined.2 That's why the big broadcasters are paying top dollar to protect their radio monopoly and keep real people off the air.

But for Black and other minority communities, the corporate takeover of radio has meant less ability to represent ourselves — even as big media companies that own dozens or even hundreds of radio stations have free rein to smear people of color and sow racial division.

The low-power FM radio bill has passed the House and has bipartisan backing in the Senate, but corporate broadcasters are fighting to kill this bill.3They've lined up a tiny group of politicians to block it4 — and this session of Congress could be our last chance to win a crop of new radio licenses available to minority communities.

Sen. Sessions probably thinks no one is paying attention. Your phone call can help change that.

Please join us in sending a message to Sen. Sessions at (202) 224-4124. Then email us at calls@colorofchange.org to let us know that you called.

Thanks and Peace,

-- James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Natasha, and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
December 14th, 2010

Deja Vu All Over Again?

As the Senate draws closer to passing the Obama Compromise, I have the same sick feeling of helplessness I felt when our Congress Cowards gave George W. Bush a blank check to take our troops to war in Iraq. Us hard core, professional lefty, tree hugging, Birkenstock wearing, Latte drinking, hybrid car driving, liberals tried tell everyone Bush was using 911 as an excuse to go to war in Iraq. We tried to tell everyone there was no WMD in Iraq. We tried to tell everyone Saddam had nothing to do with 911. We tried to tell everyone there was no exit and our troop would be plan sound the alarm. But did they listen? Noooo. We were called anti Bush, anti Troops, anti American and told to STFU and stop whining for the good of the country. Never mind that we were right (pun intended), there was no WMD in Iraq and our troops are still there.

Well here we go again. Us hardcore liberals are trying to sound the alarm about the Obama Compromise and again we're being told to STFU.

the package that has outraged many progressives -- and not a few conservatives -- is a baited trap, a Trojan Horse for the "entitlement" cutting crowd that could lead to disaster for working families over the long haul.

It's true at face value that the Republicans supporting the deal are guilty of rank hypocrisy. After years screaming that we face a looming fiscal crisis that will doom the nation in short order, Republicans won the House on a pledge to repeal the Democrats’ health care reforms, a move that would add $455 billion more to the federal deficit over the next decade (PDF) and before even taking the Speaker’s gavel, they held benefits for the long-term unemployed hostage in exchange for a tax deal that would add another $854 billion in red ink over that same period.

The Rude Pundit breaks it down (warning link contains graphic language)

So after backing President Obama on compromise after compromise on various bills, on the stimulus, on health care reform, after supporting and advocating for deals that were not only far from perfect, but were in some ways detrimental to the cause for which the bills themselves were created, after watching the President reach out again and again to Republicans, only to be told he wasn't reaching out enough and only to watch Obama say that he needs to do more to compromise, after seeing Republicans drub Democrats in an election because many Democrats were too afraid to stand for anything Democratic for fear of seeming too "partisan," after listening to Obama justify doing almost everything that George W. Bush did in the name of national security and, in some cases, going further, after years and years of watching Democrats allowing Republicans to set the terms of all arguments, whether in the majority or minority, after investing in Barack Obama the modicum of hope he asked for in changing the terms of that long, ongoing American political fistfight, only to see the whole thing twisted again by the right as they put forth the most obnoxiously anti-American candidates they could find and obstructed progress in an unprecedented way, finally, on this one thing, on absolutely opposing allowing the tax rate for the wealthiest 2% of Americans to rise by a small margin, we on the left are told by people across the political spectrum that we want too much and that we need to back down and that we need to be happy because this is the best we're gonna get.

Isn't it ironic the main ones who fell for the get government out of out lives spin are the main ones pushing for the tax cut for the rich? That's right (pun intended) the main ones without access to health care are the main ones pushing the repeal of Health care reform, by those who have access to government health care I might add. I wonder if the Tea Baggers realize they've been punk'd? Naaah.

I'm sure in 2012 you'll fall for the same old shit sales pitch about how the Democrats and black people and Hispanic people and Gay people and Muslims and Big Government are to blame for everything wrong in your life. You'll fall for the tried and true attack ads that worked this year; the ones that claimed Obama and his Black Panther Socialist Nazi Army is out to kill you, burn your house down and take away your guns, your right to practice the only true religion (Oh Jesus!) and your freedom to hate anyone Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck tell you to hate.

Don't get me wrong, just because I oppose the Obama compromise doesn't mean I don't support President Obama, however as Katrina van Heuvel notes h/t Legal Schnauzer;

Forget about electoral mandates or campaign promises. This president has a historic mandate. Just as Abraham Lincoln had to lead the nation from slavery and Franklin Roosevelt from the Depression, this president must lead the nation from the calamitous failures of three decades of conservative dominance. This requires beginning to reverse the perverse tax policies that have contributed to gilded-age inequality and starved the government of resources needed for vital investments. This demands correcting destabilizing global imbalances, laying a new foundation for reviving American manufacturing and shackling financial speculation. It means ensuring the United States leads rather than lags in the green industrial revolution. And it requires unwinding the self-destructive military adventures abroad. The president must strengthen America's basic social contract in a global economy, not weaken it.

I can't shake this feeling of Deja Vu....that we the people are heading for another Q"W"agmire. I wish our elected officials would listen to the people this time and not the polling pollsters. I fear this is a trap.

Every Act of Rebellion Helps Tear Down Our Corrupt System Chris Hedges

We the People can't win for the Media

If the media were liberal we wouldn't be in this mess. What liberal media do we have? Other than 1 hour each of Ed Shultz, Keith Olberman and Rachael Maddow when are true liberal voices seen or heard? Three hours out of 24 is not fair or balanced.

The majority of the Talking TeeVee Chatter Heads push the gop talking points. Example;

Howard Dean was just being interviewed on MSNBC about the tax cut package and long term deficits. He was making the basic point that upper income tax cuts do little to stimulate the economy and do add to the deficit and long term national debt. He was knocking it around with MSNBC's Chris Jansing when all of a sudden, Jansing exclaimed: Wait, since when are progressives the ones who believe in fiscal discipline and deficits?

Then we have Leslie Stall's soft ball interview of the Rep. John Bohner on 60 Minutes.

It's a shame CBS didn't show the famous video of Boehner tap-dancing around the time he was caught handing out tobacco bribes on the House floor. He may not have been compromising his principles, but what he did was far more egregious than what they're lynching Charlie Rangel for... FAR MORE EGREGIOUS. Even if it is the ultimate in DC common ground.

We can thank the Media Consolidation Act for the sad, sorry state of today's media and for our sons and daughters being sent to war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The media is used to scare the American people, or as Faux News says, distort what we decide. The media promotes selective amnesia.

People on Madison Avenue make a boatload of money figuring out how to sell crap to a bunch of people who don’t need it. I mean really do you need a 500.00 cell phone? The wing-nuts have brought those same tactics to politics and the media. They have used branding to not make the country completely conservative, just more conservative than it was 30 years ago. So now the center is no longer the center. You now have Dems espousing former wing-nut positions as if they were now mainstream and rational.

Is the Obama compromise a setup?

I think this White House has underestimated the wrath of a scorned base. I think what this White House and President failed to realize is that while he is the President of those who didn’t vote for him, he owed it to those who did vote for him to stand up for the issues they elected him to stand up for. Those who did not vote for him will never vote for him. Does he think that if he passed all of the Republican agenda that they would not run a challenger against him in 2012? The progressives have for the last two years been waiting for this White House to fight for something. It began with the stimulus package that was too small and loaded with concessions to the wing-nuts and still did not get a single wing-nut vote. Then we had health-care reform where everything was bargained away before the negotiations even begun and progressives thought at least they would fight for the public option which didn’t happen. And of course we had financial reform and again no fight.

Is President Obama afraid the media will portray him as an angry black man like they did Rev. Jeremiah Wright and scare the Bejeezus out of white folks? You know, I could understand white folks being scared of black folks if black folks had enslaved white folks for hundreds of years and had a documented history of violence towards white folks, but the truth of the matter, it's the other way around, so what are white folks scared of? They have all the privilege and the power.

Where is the diversity in the mainstream media? And NO, so called black conservatives don't count because all they do is say publicly what whites say privately. Rush, Beck and the other right wing Lords of Loud flood the public airways with misinformation.

The mainstream media yawned and marginalized Senator Bernie Sander's moment of truth.

The infamous White House/GOP tax cut deal will likely pass both the Senate and House next week and then become law. But Bernie Sanders has opened a Pandora's box of illumination that will vex the feckless, ever-retreating White House and the grossly hypocritical Republicans for some time to come.

The past is prologue.

As we pass the 10th anniversary of the Bush v. Gore decision—technically yesterday, December 12—it is interesting to note how much of our current political predicament can be discerned in the events of those days. The Bush-Gore election illustrates three key points about today’s political and media environment:

* Conservatives fight harder and dirtier for what they want than progressives.

* The mainstream media gives conservatives a pass for acting and speaking in their own political interest while criticizing progressives for the same thing.

* Conservative commentators recognize few if any boundaries in their willingness to demonize progressives, with virtually no corollary of any kind among progressives.

Quoting Democratic Alabama State Senator Hank Sanders

We see things and think they are unfair. We think they are easy to correct. We try to correct the injustice but one thing leads to another and another. Sometimes other injustices occur in the process. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

It's the media, I won't say stupid, because we aren't stupid, the media must think we are stupid.

Edit~Where in the world is Congresswoman elect Terri Sewell?

Apologies to readers for the many errors contained in this post. That's what I get for trying to write a diary, prepare Sunday dinner and watch the football game at the same time.


I'm not the only one who is wondering with the restructuring of the Alabama Democratic Party, will the "top democrat" in the state assist or influence it? Other than a blurb about her support for Nancy Pelosi and hiring an out of state Chief of staff, we've heard nary a peep out out of Little Miss Sewell.

You would think after her historic election as the the first African American women elected to Congress from Alabama and being on the list of Freshmen to Watch and the states top elected democratic official we'd be hearing something from Miss Sewell about the Obama Compromise, ethics reform, who the new head of the ADP should or should not be, education, AEA, ethics reform,something. I know there are those who are adopting the "give her a chance" and "let her cast her first vote" meme, but we've been there and done that.

Remember?

Where in the world is Terri Sewell? How are we going to "watch" her if we can't find her?

Some insight into the duties of Congressional staffers and an offer of help from one of Sewells constituents from my inbox.

Let me in this discussion, since I worked in congress for Earl Hilliard and have some experience. The Chief of Staff should always be someone who is well acquainted with Congress and networked there. S/he controls the money and all that the Congressperson deals with, and has to know what she is doing. I’ve see abject failures in that position.

It is the District Director who has to know the district people, and deals directly with them. That person should be located in the district office, not DC.

A third person, the Legislative Director, deals directly with the real work of what we laughingly call democracy.

I was going to offer to assist her in finding personnel (not including me) among those I know and getting her networked in and ready to work. I never could find her to discuss anything. All I wanted was to assist her in what she wanted to do.

Sunday Shock, Shame and Awe

Southern Heritage,the Tea Party and the problem of Wal-mart.

There is a glaring hypocrisy within the Republican Tea Party, for which I must now take my white Southern brethren to task. You say Big Government is evil. Ok, I get that and I tend to agree. But if this so, what the hell makes Big Business so good? It is just as powerful as government and just as evil. In fact, government, for all its excesses, is not actively destroying our environment or wastefully exhausting our resources, but Big Business is. Why is that ok?

Justice AmeriBama style
African-American residents of central Alabama are organizing to protest the six-month jail sentence that a white former state trooper has just begun for one of the seminal killings of the Civil Rights Movement.

A candlelight vigil open to people from across the country and other possible events are in the works, residents said this week.

The motivation for all this organizing is the fact that James Bonard Fowler, 77, began serving a half-year sentence on Dec. 1 in Geneva, Ala., for the Feb. 18, 1965, fatal shooting of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old African-American church deacon, father and Vietnam veteran.

Jackson was taking part in a peaceful civil rights protest in his hometown of Marion, Ala., when Fowler shot him in the stomach. Jackson died eight days later in the hospital, his death prompting the Selma to Montgomery marches, which ultimately led to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Meanwhile a peaceful Georgia Prisoners Strike is way under the radar.

The peaceful strike begun by inmates of several Georgia state prisons continued for a second day on Friday, according to family members of some of the participants. Copyrighted news stories by AP, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and local TV stations in Macon and Atlanta quote state corrections who say several institutions were placed on lock down beginning Thursday in anticipation of the inmate protest, on the initiative of wardens of those prisons.

"Don't call me a racist you N word" Read, watch and then tell me: was this lady being racist or was she just venting frustration? The floor is yours.

The Sunday Talking TeeVee Knucklehead meme is that President Obama is moving to the center to insure his re-election. Don't fall for the Okey Doke. The so called center are really republicans and if they have a choice between a real republican and you..you know the rest. Ask your Harvard buddy and ex Congress Critter Artur Davis how pandering to these people at the expense of you base worked out for him. Contrary to Knucklehead opinion, these people didn't bring you to the dance.

A GAMBLE REPUBLICANS WERE WILLING TO TAKE.... Political parties are traditionally motivated by fear of public revulsion. To take steps that make the party's members look like monsters is rarely a good idea.

So it was interesting this week to see congressional Republicans overwhelmingly reject the Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which would pay health care costs for 9/11 rescue workers, sickened after exposure to the toxic smoke and debris. In the House, more than 90% of GOP lawmakers opposed the bill. In the Senate, a unanimous Republican caucus found the bill so offensive, they wouldn't even give it an up-or-down vote.

Fear of appearing sociopathic probably should have led to a few more Republican votes. After all, it's not exactly a compelling message to take to the electorate: we'll fight tooth and nail for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, but we'll also reject health care costs for 9/11 rescue workers.

And why would Republicans take a risk like this, especially over legislation that was both affordable and paid for? Because they're probably confident most Americans won't hear a word about this.

The fact that the 9/-11-related legislation was defeated was news. Period. The fact that it was defeated as part of the larger Republican strategy to tie the Senate in knots made yesterday's vote even more newsworthy.

But not at ABC, CBS or NBC. Last night, all three evening newscasts failed to report on the fact that Republicans had voted down a previously bipartisan bill designed to provide medical coverage for Sept. 11 emergency workers. At the major networks, that development was not considered newsworthy.

That's pretty remarkable. But the larger point here is that Republicans are now practicing an unprecedented brand of obstructionism and they're doing without having to pay much of a political price. Why? Because the press is giving them a pass

The Tea Party's war on public education and public educators continues.

Alabama legislature in "special session" is taking on ethics reform. Of course this is the first time the GOP has ever had control in Montgomery so they are "making hay while the sun shines" so to speak. One of their so called ethics bills is directly aimed at taking away the AEA's pac automatic deductions and I/we here in Alabama need some help.

Shocking, Shameful and Awful.