Speaking Power to "Truth"

As Congress debates Health Care Reform, the stimulus package starts showing signs of positive impact, and the war on Afghanistan intensifies, what is the right wing media up to? First of all, they're keeping the debate alive over the legitimacy of President Obama's birth certificate. Second, they're intensifying their attacks on the nonprofit organizations working on climate change, economic justice and other causes they deem "radical." These attacks are no longer the sphere of the right wing blogosphere; they're going mainstream, not surprisingly starting with FOX, but seeping into other media outlets including CNN.

The dissemination of conservative misinformation is certainly not a new thing. It's a great tactic because it works -- people really do believe things like 'Health Care Reform will get rid of Medicare,' 'obesity is not a problem in America,' and 'Obama is destroying America on purpose.' Democrats are in power for the first time in over 30 years and FOX is responding by doing its best to air the most fringe, radical, and oftentimes hateful rhetoric heard anywhere on the right.

Now, in the age of Obama, many progressive organizations find themselves as regular targets on the most watched news program in the nation. Glenn Beck of FOX News likes to illustrate a "tree" of linkages across organizations working on the left -- think tanks, funders, organizing and advocacy groups, communications strategists -- all working to bring down America, with Obama himself controlling the strings.

If only the left were so well coordinated.

Over the years, Tides has often been subjected to the rants, half-truths and lunatic assertions of the right wing. Beck has added Tides to his list of "extreme" left wing groups who are contributing to the "socialization" of America. And, he has more deeply attacked some of our most successful and impactful projects. According to Beck, the Apollo Alliance's efforts to generate green jobs for a green economy are just short of Stalinist. And FOX News says that Annie Leonard's Story of Stuff, the viral video that Tides helped incubate, is "teaching our children to hate and fear prosperity."

As progressive ideas like green jobs become mainstream, the right is clearly threatened. Their falsehoods and perception warping is intensifying. So what do we do? Basking in our infamy can be fun, but it's time for the vast left wing conspiracy to link arms, step into our power and fight back. There's been a significant change in our ability to influence the public agenda, and just because we are in power, doesn't mean that our work hasn't diminished. In fact, we all need to pick it up several notches to reverse the erosion of rights that has gone on for the past 30 years. The Momentum community is addressing how individual issues can be transformed from hot buttons to powerful rallying points for larger movements, and we encourage progressives to join us. There is no room for complacency now.

Comments

[S1m0n]

Lovely title!

[mummblemouth]

Make the push for single payer:

http://www.democrats.com/single-payer-petition

[jalowe1957]

It is not just non-profit organizations that are vulnerable to attacks and exertions of undue influence by outside third-parties (read: right-wing organizations) who either harbor nefarious agendas, or have some form of ax to grind.

And it's not just the non-profits who are being victimized in this fashion. There was a concerted effort to derail and to effectively nullify the appointment of Erwin Chemerinsky as dean of UC Irvine's new School of Law by a cadre of Republican operatives led by Michael Schroeder, a GOP activist in Orange County, California with a history of instigating trouble for those who refused to kowtow to his wishes.

Once the appointment of Chemerinsky was withdrawn, there was a firestorm of blowback not only from the left, but from those on the right who respected Chemerinsky for respecting their points of view.

Once UC Irvine's administrators were publicly embarrassed, they relented and gave Chemerinsky the position, which they should have done in the first place.

This is a phenomenon that we should be concerned with, given how their disproportionate influence is magnified and amplified in the MSM to eardrum-shattering proportions.

[LMPE]

Part of the problem is that millions of dolts out there will believe anything that Glenn Beck says. No point in trying to make them understand the truth.

[BobLablah]

I call BS. The right wing media all denounced the birthers long ago. It's the left wing media and HuffPo bloggers who want to keep the issue alive.

[viewfromuphere]

only after it became patently obvious that Orly what's her name and her band of merry tin foil types were completely and utterly out of line...did the right wing media finally understand that this issue was making them look like morons.

and that's the only reason they denounced the birthers and is disengenuous to claim anything else

[MontanaSouth]

what planet have you been on?

[valkyrie607]

That's great news! Which news anchor or pundit, specifically, denounced the birthers? Was it Beck? Or Dobbs? Perhaps Limbaugh? Please provide a link, I'd love to watch that.

Mostly because I don't believe you. But please, prove me wrong. I make a point of not listening to fact-free ranting of any ideological stripe, so I may well have missed something.

[BobLablah]

HuffOPo blogger Eric Boehlert himself said in a July 27 post "the (birther) movement got manhandled by the press -- including by conservative commentators". Are you saying Eric is a liar or stupid?

PS: Lou Dobbs a Republican? Hilarious. Slate ran an infamous story crediting Obama's victory to "Lou Dobbs Democrats".

[sociocanuck]

So do I, but it's directed at someone other than M. Bradley