Where's the Liberal TV Channel?
Re: "Switching Channels," Michael Tomasky, 4/13/07.
We're not liberal zillionaires, but we have a technology that could be used to put up an internet TV station at very low cost. The bigger costs would be in assembling a compelling program schedule. But the perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the good. If you get a decent web cam and put up a makeshift studio you can stream a program to our servers.You can start by simply talking about the articles you write every day. Invite politicians and think tankers over to expound on lost emails or girlfriends on the payroll. Get Matt Yglesias to talk about basketball. Before you know it you'd have a full programming day. Forget cable -- that is soooo 1995.
Here are some screens showing what LibTV might look like.
Drew Robertson
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Amy Goodman and others have been trying to get this independent news channel going for quite some time. IWT news was supposed to be an independent news channel starting on the net and eventually buying a cable spot. Maybe if you did an article on them you could get some interest going and investors... which I'm sure is what's holding it up. Republicans have a lot more money than we do, because they put their money in oil and other things that basically harm the planet! Anyway, if you're interested, here's how far they have gotten so far.
Rob Moitoza, Veterans for Peace
Seattle, WA
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I believe there is a market for liberal views in the media, on radio and television. But the problem with Air America, or the idea of a liberal news cable channel, is not with the “market” or with finding the start-up money. Those things are there. The problem is sustaining the station or network once it is created. The reason for Air America's “failure” is not that people aren't (or weren't) listening; the problem is that no big corporations will advertise on it because they view progressives and liberalism as threats.
Big corporations don't want to support viewpoints that might question, or even honestly examine “free-trade” or “free-market” economic theories and ideas. Plenty of conservative talk radio programs will trot Pat Buchanan out if the subject is illegal immigration, but they will never interview him about his economic ideas, or on, say, Israel. But a truly progressive station, like Air America will -- and that scares the hell out of the big corporations and corporate conglomerates whose money is absolutely necessary to keep a major media outlet operating.
This is why Air America is failing; they can only get advertising dollars from small local companies and from small-dollar government-sponsored public announcement ads like the Scruff McGruff crime prevention program. This is why the Fairness Doctrine idea is viewed by so many as the only way for “progressives” to get their “voice” back in the mainstream media.
Lance Ott
Trenton, TX
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Failures of Liberalism
Robert Kuttner wrote a column dealing with the failures of conservatism ("Third Time's the Charm," 4/15/07). Conservatism has had many failures, however, it is equally true that liberalism has had many failures -- my own conclusion is that humanity applies insufficient talent and wisdom to governing itself. Humans are full of weaknesses and passions which lead to self-defeat. Name one society, one culture or one people that has successfully and continuously maintained an enviable lifestyle (liberal or conservative) that we should strive to emulate in this day and age.
Let me ask you, "Why should we seek a society in which there is no inequality?" Inequality is in the nature of all living things. Is there something immoral in someone running faster than another? Is there something immoral in someone being richer than another? Would you handicap the ambitious, the stronger, the more knowledgeable persons?
Sherwood "Woody" Pratt
Brookline, MA
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The Case for Unionism
I have read the article "For Me, Not For Thee" (Harold Meyerson, 04/12/07) in both the Post and the American Prospect and want to thank you for making the case for the efficacy of trade unionism in our economy. The public needs to be reminded of these facts about wealth distribution over and over so they can learn the issues.
People have to understand that unionism makes good economic sense. That is, while business production of goods and services is the fundament of wealth creation, businesspeople won't knowingly do it if someone isn't going to buy what they produce. So, as Henry Ford once understood, if workers are paid a decent wage, they will become good customers and the economy will grow and everyone will prosper. Government needn't be involved. A union contract can be a private arrangement, sanctioned by law and enforceable in courts, but business will be free to run their own affairs.
The problem in the Democratic party has been that we've forgotten these lessons. Capitalists get rich and the common man becomes a consumer, caricatures that some in the party tend to decry. It is as if God were playing a joke on us. We must sell our souls, in the eyes of people dismayed by this prospect, in order to achieve wealth, security and the time to contemplate our souls. It is this mindset, together with our obsession with personal freedom, that has opened the field for the minimalist Republican argument against government. We have to keep emphasizing these economic points and analyze the arguments Republicans and their ideologues use so we can counter them. I really believe their economic logic can't stand the light of day if we are prepared to contest it.
Robert Abbott
Gilbert, AZ
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