The APJ Mailbag

From: Steve L
Re: Bisbort on AOL
Date: Nov. 24, 2002

AOL must stop being biased or face the economic consequences. I've had an AOL account since shortly after it became first available and don't like what it's become. It will be a bother (but hardly a hardship) to quit AOL. But after sufficient notice I would as part of a general boycott. I suggest forwarding Alan Bisbort's letter. I have done so. I also suggest submitting complaints to all of their departments (not just the one which you won't get a response from) using the addresses that appear at the site listed above. Every time there is favoritism to Bush or any right-winger it should be pounced on and complained about. What I seek is neutrality and even-handedness not propaganda. It's like getting political propaganda along with a utility bill.

From: Michael K
Re: Bisbort on AOL
Date: Nov. 24, 2002

>>> Reading your poll results and given today's culture it is
>>> really difficult to tell if the survey is real or if it is
>>> simply a satire. If the survey is real, then it
>>> immortalizes the words, "We have met the enemy, and it is
>>> us."

>>> Orwell was right. He was only 20 years too early.

It wasn't Orwell, it was Walt Kelly, creator of the Pogo comic strip.

Keep fighting the good fight!

NOTE FROM THE EDITORS: We suspect that Alan wasn't putting Walt's words in Orwell's mouth, so to speak, but was making two points that converge quite nicely. Welcome to 1984...

From: Ron
Re: Bisbort on AOL
Date: Nov. 23, 2002

I could not have said it more forcefully and eloquently!! Thank you so much.

From: MAL
Re: Bisbort on AOL
Date: Nov. 23, 2002

BRAVO TO BISBORT AND HIS OPEN LETTER TO AOL.

Everything he says is so true...especially about the message boards. After reading some of the hateful drivel in them, I get depressed that some Americans have stooped to this level.

From: Georgie
Re: Bisbort on AOL
Date: Nov. 23, 2002

It comes as something of a surprise to me that you have waited this long to chastise AOL. In fact, I quit AOL some years ago, because I could then see the lay-of-that-land. Chuck it!

From: Dennis W.
Re: JFK
Date: Nov. 22, 2002

Just read your daily diatribe for November 22, 2002. I crave it, please don't every change, it is one of the very few voices of sanity left in a very scary, uncertain and yes, "brave, new world."

But even scarier is 1) In spite of all political ramblings and maneuvering going on, nobody, including APJ, mentioned that it was the 39th "anniversary," if you can call it that, of the assassination of one of the greatest Presidents the country every had, or could ever hope to have. Senator Bentsen's words are eerily poignant today, "Mr. President, you're no Jack Kennedy." 2) Reading your poll results and given today's culture it is really difficult to tell if the survey is real or if it is simply a satire. If the survey is real, then it immortalizes the words, "We have met the enemy, and it is us."

Orwell was right. He was only 20 years too early.

From: Brad O.
Re: Ted Hennedy
Date: Nov. 22, 2002

Ted Kennedy delivered this speech on the Senate floor just a few hours after Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Bork for the Supreme Court in July 1987.

"Robert Bork's America," Kennedy warned, "is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is -- and is often the only -- protector of the individual rights that are at the heart of our democracy."

Maybe they didn't need Robert Bork.

From: David G.
Re: Liberal bias in our press?
Date: Nov. 21, 2002

Our free press has become nothing more than the mouthpiece of the ruling party; ready to accept the government version of events as well as the meaning and effect of those events.

A healthy, robust, independent, and vigorous fourth estate secures our way of life more effectively than a trillion dollars worth of hardware. What we have seen is a complete corruption of these ideals and what will follow will be the steady erosion of liberty we have been so inattentive as a people in protecting.

We are essentially an immature people. We are a people that blithely take for granted those rights and freedoms that our society, virtually alone in the world, bestows upon its citizens. Most of our fellow citizens don’t bother to vote. Based upon the evidence of the electorate’s political illiteracy, that may not be a bad thing. Six companies have swallowed the popular press whole.
News is now considered a profit center where entertainment value trumps the national interest in presenting pertinent, meaningful, truthful information to the citizens of our country. The tension between capitalism and democracy has resulted in a system where citizens are completely ignorant concerning the world, the country, the state, even the city where they live.

There was a better time in America.

Between 1949 and 1987, there existed something known as the “Fairness Doctrine”. This was a rather innocuous little regulation that said – among other things – that media, in order to secure a broadcast license, must present “issues of controversy” to the public. Additionally, both (or all) sides of the issue were to be represented. Finally, there was a limit to the type and number of media outlets any entity could own in any market.

The “Fairness Doctrine” had several positive effects. First, it had the effect of educating the electorate in a subtle yet vital fashion. People were more conversant about candidates and issues during this period then they are today. Second, because all sides of issues important to the general welfare of the citizens were given a seat around the table of ideas, advertising dollars were not the single most significant factor in deciding American elections. Third, by attempting to insulate citizens in any one geographic region from a single or even a small group of owners whose financial and political interests and point of views would presumably be similar a constraint was created for the purpose of preventing any such small group or single entity the ability to control information to that regions citizenry.

A direct negative effect of the “Fairness Doctrine” being killed by corporate interests –through their proxies in the Reagan administration - has been the both the absolute poisoning of political debate as well as the “dumbing down” of the public discourse that has occurred. Both these phenomenon have a direct correlation to the rise of conservative hate radio. The death of the Fairness Doctrine gave birth to the rise of talk radio with it’s overwhelming rightwing biases that trumpet the conservative messages of the corporate media (without the constraint of having to air opposing points of view). This means that Americans are now less informed than at ant time in history.

Rightwing hate radio is everywhere on the AM dial from early in the morning to late at night. Previously shamed characters like Oliver North, G.Gordon Liddy, and various other felons, reactionaries, and fascists found that the average American – bereft of any inclination for critical thought and without even the most basic understanding of how their government works – was the perfect target audience. Within a few years, hucksters like Limbaugh were circulating lists of all the people that Bill and Hillary Clinton personally murdered.

The latest example of how the rightwing national media has distorted reality is that it has now become conventional wisdom that Resident Bush has been a leader on the issue of Iraq, and further, that his leadership enabled him to prevail over the Democrats in the midterm election. Can somebody please explain to me why our conservative press corps insists on heaping this undeserved praise on the Bush administration? Forgive me if I am wrong, but it seems clear that the course of action the President has chosen to take is EXACTLY the one endorsed by the Democrats. The Resident ended up acquiescing to the Democrat-preferred approach despite Mr. Bush’s initial insistence for a tougher, more unilateral, and more immediate military response. Yet, the press keeps propagandizing our citizens with the ruling party’s version of reality; with the ruling parties proclamations of victory on an issue they were on the wrong side of from the begining. At the outset of this affair, it was the Democrats that urged U.N. participation. It was the Democrats that urged building a coalition. It was the Democrats that urged bringing inspectors back, thus providing a reasonable alternative to war all the while building support among all nations for military action should Saddam refuse; and thus inoculating the United States against charges of precipitating unnecessarily a war against a Muslim country. Yet the press now confers accolades upon the idiot-in-chief.

Unless the press starts to critically analyze the pabulum it’s being fed by the administration, I fear for the future of our democracy.

From: Galoysius
Re: Koopersmith on Hitchens
Date: Nov. 19, 2002

Hitchens shouldn't be called an "armchair warrior."

He's a barstool warrior.

From: Bill B.
Re: APJ
Date: Nov. 18, 2002

I just wanted to thank you for being the voice for us who have no voice. What you do is an HONORABLE THING -- your columns and writings are clear and concise and I had lost all hope until I'd seen there are those out there who will NOT BE DENIED THE TRUTH! GOD SEES YOU FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT, GOD WILL BLESS YOU, THANK YOU AGAIN, NEVER GIVE UP!

From: The Editors
To: Bill B.
Date: Nov. 18, 2002

Thanks!

From: popeye
Re: Bush with the lens caps (blinders) on
Date: Nov. 18, 2002

It is entirely possible that he's using a pair of night vision binoculars, in which case if used in daylight (don't ask, don't tell...) the front objectives would have placed over them caps that have a small hole to admit a lower light level (also known to the photography world as f/stop) to insure that the sunlight wouldn't damage the imaging devices (which it would).

But you probably think I'm as full of shit as the rest of the administration...so it goes

Hail the republic!