Reply #26: But what mechanism do we use to change minds?

[cryofan]

Yes, we need to bring back unions, we need to get high voter participation rates, we need to get proportional representation, etc etc.

But in order to do these things, we first need to change the minds of many many Americans. We need to show them that these things (unions, voter participation, strong welfare, etc) work well in some other place.

I think that the evidence shows that they do work well in the social democracies of Europe.

But how do we convince Americans of that? How do we get the evidence in front of them? We need some medium through which we can do that.

The Air America and other liberal radio is a good start, though I have my doubts that in its present format it is anything other than a DLC/Centrist/Republicrat vehicle.

I see only one vehicle--the Internet. And already the increasing use of the Web to get news and entertainment is pushing non-elite mainstream media to present alternative viewpoints.

What we need is cheap, widely available broadband net access. Once we have that, people can download and view alternative video news easily.

So, I hope that the kerry admin will push whatever reforms are needed in order to make cheap broadband available. Cheap broadband mitigates the GOP money advantage.