Nader Raiding

I, and many other journalists, I'm sure, received an interesting email from Ralph Nader's presidential campaign today. After essentially calling the lot of us ignorant, insensitive, biased louts, he asked for a response.

Here is mine, embedded within his original note. (For the most part I didn't critique grammar and punctuation. That could have taken all day.)

Open Letter to Members of the National Media:
[Dear Ralph, if I may be so bold as to address you in the familiar: Perhaps one of the things that contributes to a perceived inattention to your campaign is the media perception that you care about us as little as you seem to think we care about you. What's with the "open letter," dude?]

Having spoken to numerous reporters and some editors with the national media (as distinguished from the local media) [It's always a mistake to alienate local media. They resent the dismissal, and one never knows when a local reporter will become a national or global reporter. Tsk.] about the blackout or near blackout of the Nader/Gonzalez presidential campaign, striving to challenge the two party, exclusionary duopoly, (debates, ballot obstacles, etc.) I must ask a general question:

What journalistic criteria have you been employing in this presidential year that guides your pronounced non-coverage of the number three campaign that advances majoritarian agendas based on long experience, involvement, and accomplishment. [What? No question mark? Good thing you told me up-front you were about to ask a question. And get over your vocabulary. Using big words makes you seem elitist. Haven't you been paying attention to the Obama critiques?] These agendas are either opposed or ignored by McCain and Obama (see www.votenader.org) and are often rooted in the very investigative reports by your reporters? [Now there's a question mark. Have you no proofreaders?]

It is puzzling how editors and publishers who oversee these prize winning stories seem to lose interest in covering Americans who are trying to do something with that information for a better country. We asked one top editor of a major daily why his paper was not covering us at all and he said, "Because you can't win." Besides being a catch-22 that he quickly acknowledged, that is not a supportable newsworthy judgment. [In your most humble news judgment, I trust.] News Media have covered many stories outside the electoral arena of people "who can't win" and such coverage extends to both the import of the struggles and the reasons why "winning is not possible" given the stacked deck against them. [Ah yes: The interminable struggle of the underdog. Here's a tip: In order to catch a reporter's or editor's attention, the underdog must have something interesting to say. Just the fact that he or she considers himself or herself an underdog is not sufficient justification for an expenditure of ink. In addition, I seem to recall a similar complaint from you in 2004. If we in the media neglected to clarify then that we often have difficulty deciphering your esoteric, if strident, talking points, I apologize for all of us intellectually challenged hacks.]

There has been a witting or unwitting political bigotry against third parties and independent candidates, as there was years ago against minority voters. [In general, or are you accusing us of being bigots? If it's the latter, I think I should warn you that name-calling seldom breeds sympathy.] Against the status of such candidates obstructed through ballot access laws by the two parties that dislike competition they present other rigged ways to secure their domination over the electoral landscape, including gerrymandering each other in the majority of Congressional Districts, for example. [And speaking of esoteric, if strident, talking points, what the heck are you trying to say here, anyway?]

This is meant to be a short letter. [Thank goodness, considering the tone so far. No one likes a lengthy diatribe, especially when they're the subject of it.] Journalism scholars, reporters, and other post-election writers of books and articles will be chronicle, no doubt, the quantity and quality of media coverage (see the previous analysis by such scholars as Stephen Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter). [What previous analysis? Another tip: Reporters are as lazy as the next guy. If you're going to throw out an obscure reference (and any reference to J school, J-school professors and media analysts is obscure to everyone who graduated more than a year ago), at least give us a clue where we may find more information. Google is a marvelous resource, but everyone who keeps me from having to resort to googling gets extra points.]

For now, please verify for yourselves your own non-coverage or coverage and inform us what your journalistic criteria standards or policies led you to this definition of your readers, listeners, and viewers rights to know. [Like that's gonna happen. If we haven't taken the time to cover your campaign, what makes you think we have time to engage in lengthy debates about our motives? Honestly, upon respectful, non-threatening request most media organizations are happy to provide statistics and explanations. What they don't like to do is defend themselves from the thoroughly perplexing wrath of people who feel they've been slighted.]

Thank you for responding, even though there is obviously no obligation to do so. [But I thought you just asked us to inform you about our decision-making process! See what I mean about puzzling? In any case, you're welcome. I think.]

Sincerely,
Ralph Nader

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Fear and Loathing

I'm in a quandary about which way to vote. My mind is made up about the presidential candidates, so at least that's one race about which I can quit obsessing. Every other race, however, has me flummoxed.

Like a good many other Americans, I imagine, I'm one of those voters who doesn't like to be labeled. I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. I would call myself an independent, but that term has become associated with party politics, as well. I guess I fall somewhere within the "little-el libertarian" spectrum, because some of my views are socially liberal and others are fiscally conservative. I am neither far right nor far left, at least the majority of the time, and I believe the Constitution of the United States is a living, breathing document and about the best government guideline going (or it would be, if people would stop trying to subvert it).

Here's my problem, though: I am sick to death of "politics as usual." I'm fed up with the people's representatives in Washington and Austin. Exactly which people are they representing, other than themselves? That question stood out in stark relief against the background noise generated by the recent debate over the Wall Street bailout. When all was said and done, Congress had approved $850 billion dollars in so-called relief for the troubled American economic system — despite what appeared to be overwhelming opposition to the plan from rank-and-file Americans. If that's what congresscritters call representing their constituents, someone's definition of "representing" needs modification.

Adding insult to injury, $150 billion of the bailout funds was devoted to "earmarks" (read "pork"). Can't anything be done in Washington without someone's pet project sneaking onto the bill?

I'm also beyond annoyed that big Wall Street players who were bailed out before the bailout — "for the good of the American economy" (*snort*) — have continued the Good Time Charlie ways that got them in trouble in the first place. AIG is a glaring example: Congress appropriated $80 billion in funds to prop up the insurance giant, AIG continued engaging in ridiculous excesses, Congress publicly lambasted the company and its executives ... and then handed it another $39 billion because the $80 billion wasn't enough to allow AIG to maintain itself in the overblown, conspicuously consumptive style to which it had become accustomed.

Am I the only one who was incensed by that?

Now the U.S. Treasury is planning to use at least part of the $850 billion bailout money to ... well, bail out homeowners who got themselves in over their heads with mortgages they probably couldn't afford when they applied for them. Yes, some people are in danger of losing their homes, and some of those people probably weren't entirely capable of understanding the terms of their loans. In those cases, the issuing banks should be drawn and quartered, because their actions were at best irresponsible and greedy and at worst criminally fraudulent and abusive. Borrowers who had the wool pulled over their eyes by salivating moneylenders may deserve some kind of relief. The stupid ones, however — the ones who accepted mortgages they strongly suspected they couldn't afford — deserve neither relief nor sympathy. They certainly don't deserve the largesse of other taxpayers who were neither greedy enough, shortsighted enough nor idiotic enough to place themselves in the same financial sinkhole. Yet that's exactly the position in which Congress has placed the people it purports to represent, despite our not wanting to be there.

So here's my thought: If the current crop of congresscritters is determined to ignore the will of their constituents, shouldn't the constituents tell them their (dis)service no longer is needed? Shouldn't we all band together and vote the bums out? If every voter would vote for the political challenger over the incumbent in races that offer a choice, we could do exactly that.

That's a nice thought, but it's probably not going to happen. Even if there were some way to herd cats, undoubtedly some of the cats would decide at the last minute that the evil they don't know is much scarier than the evil with which they're already familiar. In addition, some cats, like lemmings, will follow the leader over a cliff rather than vote for someone in "that other" political party.

And there's my problem in a nutshell. I'm willing to vote against every incumbent on the ballot in November, despite considering myself an informed voter who makes her choices based on what I like to think is an educated reading of each candidate's platform, not his or her party affiliation. The move would be risky, though, because I'd have to hope neither ultra-right religious nuts nor ultra-left spendthrifts gained control of my country — and one or the other could, depending upon how everyone else votes. The cautious side of me and the very, very angry side of me are at war over the issue right now.

Both sides, however, are intrigued by the possibility that if every voter vowed to throw the bums out, the result would send a very clear message to Congress that We the People are tired of being ignored, talked down to and told we have no clue what's best for us individually or en masse.

Thomas Jefferson probably would approve. It was he who said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

And manure is one thing of which there is no shortage in Washington.

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