Reply #6: They will only get worse until we restore the Fairness Doctrine, especially the parts

[Peace Patriot]

that ban corporate 'news' monopolies.

But be of good cheer. Hugo Chavez and every other successful leftist leader in South American are doing quite well despite barrages of putrid chemical toxins, called 'journalism,' such as we have never heard/seen here, 24/7, on about 70% of the public airwaves and in over 50% of the newsprint. Chavez enjoys a 70% approval rating. His closest allies, Evo Morales (Bolivia) and Rafael Correa (Ecuador) also have stratospheric approval ratings; so, too, one of their closest center-left allies, Lula da Silva (Brazil). Their newest compadre, Fernando Lugo--the first leftist ever elected in Paraguay--had an approval rating of over 90% in his first month in office. I don't know what it is now (about 6 months into his first term), but I'm sure it's still high.

How do South Americans do it--elect such popular leaders, despite pervasive, corossive, fascist press?

The main key is TRANSPARENT ELECTIONS--which South Americans have been working hard on for over a decade. We have to realize that, despite Obama's election, and some improvement in Congress, the private, rightwing corporations who control the 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code in all our voting machines, have the capability--the easy capability--of tossing Obama out of the White House in 2012, and taking back Congress and making it into a rubber stamp for Hitler II. That is the reality. I don't know that they will be able to pull it off. But that is what they can do, with our voting system the way it is.

In Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and most of South America, now, the leaders know that the people can re-elect them--they have honest aboveboard elections--and so the leaders are beholden, first of all, to the people. Here, I think Obama did win--or rather, was permitted to win--but they significantly and fraudulently shaved his mandate, to prevent any fundamental reform. Among other constraints--the corpo/fascist media included--this is a good part of why Obama is the way he is, has made the appointments he's made, and hasn't proposed the profound, structural, anti-corporate and anti-war profiteer reforms that are so desperately needed. The corpo/fascists who control the voting machines can toss him out. They are who he is beholden to, not us. I do think he cares about the rest of us--what a change from Bush!--but his hands are tied in many ways, and this is simply not the case in the real democracies that are emerging in South (and also Central) America.

The second main key is grass roots organization--and on this, a lot of Latin American activists have it over us, in community relationships which make organizing easier. There are a lot things that make the U.S. different--our many fractured communities, the size of our country, our humongous war budget. We can overcome the organizing problems, and I think we are doing so, with the internet. But the other differences make us a unique target population for control by multinational corporations--corporations with no loyalty to any people or country.

I mainly just wanted to point out how they did it in South America--despite horrendous corporate media. And that shrieking, unrelenting, fascist media is still going strong. So while the media is most certainly a problem here, I would say it's problem no. 2. Our first priority must be to get back public control of vote counting. With the power to elect--and, critically, to re-elect--good leaders, we can begin to deal with media as we have in the past--with regulation aimed at busting monopolies, and at fostering public service and fair public debate.