Okay - I'm back. After a couple of days of reflection, I'm going to start blogging again. But first I need to get something off of my chest. One of the reasons that we are having trouble as progressives is because we have this ill-advised need to tell the truth. Or at least to try.
This is difficult in a world of right-wing propaganda. More and more, the right-wing world of death panels, black helicopters, and a takeover by Muslim/Mexican/European/Lesbian activists is escaping from the tinfoil hat crowd and is leaking into the mainstream media. There was a time when the press would have said "whoa, that's crazy" and called it out as such. But in our new world, where balanced means letting everyone lie, there seems to be no filtering of any of this. Personally I find this a frightening development. I certainly can blame some of the last election cycle on this, since a lot of debate that I've heard seems to revolve around issues that are provably wrong, or ill-informed. Or just plain made up. Now we keep hearing that Obama is gutting the US Economy and the Navy to go on a trip to Asia. I've heard this multiple times, and I try not to watch the conservative media any more than I have to. Total lies. Why do we keep hearing it?
Rachel Maddow puts this better than I could. Where the hell have the "liberal media" gone? All I'm seeing is more and more conservative media and conservative media enablers.