Honoring our journalistic heroes'
Date: Wednesday, October 12 @ 10:14:30 EDT
Topic: Liberals And The Left


Bernard Weiner, The Crisis Papers

A political and media onslaught is about to be unleashed with the
indictments of a whole host of key White House officials (including
you-know-who) caught up in the Plamegate coverup. The unraveling of this
potentially treasonous scandal -- which began with the outing, for political
reasons, of a covert CIA officer -- could well provide the tipping point
that will allow the Democrats to retake the House in the next election,
initiate Congressional investigations of Bush Administration crimes, and
possibly even pass an impeachment resolution.

So, before all the craziness begins, it might be useful to remind ourselves
how far we've come in the battle to remove the extremists who currently rule
so recklessly and incompetently in our names. And how the work we've all
been doing in the political trenches, unearthing the corruption and
incompetence and dangerous initiatives of the Bush Administration, has
helped weaken that crowd of crooks and liars to the point where impeachment
is a serious possibility. Of course, the Republicans these days -- with
their never-ending exploding scandals and bare-knuckles infighting -- are
not doing such a bad job destroying themselves without our help.

We here at The Crisis Papers, along with other progressives websites and
organizations, deal so often with the negative high crimes and misdemeanors
of the Administration, and with the cluelessness and cowardice of the
ostensible Democratic opposition, that it's easy to be swept totally into
that Bush shadow world and lose sight of the strength and powers at our
command, and the hope they represent.



So I'd like today to recognize the heroes of our battle, who, ultimately,
are helping to lead our country to a restoration of Constitutional rule and
the banishment of the worst of the Bush&Co. miscreants either to political
exile or, for a good many of the worst participants, to jail.

HERO #1: A COURAGEOUS U.S. SENATOR

But first some history:

Four-plus years ago, in the wake of the Supreme Court's 5-4 installation of
Bush into the White House, it looked as if we progressives and traditional
Republicans were in for total defeat. The Bush neo-cons and power mongers
who had hijacked the Republican Party controlled the House, the Senate (by
one vote), the Executive Branch, and most of the corporate mass-media.

But then a courageous U.S. Senator, Jim Jeffords of Vermont, Hero#1, stepped
forward to resign from the Republican caucus and, as an Independent, side
most of the time with the Democrats, giving them a one-vote majority in the
Senate. The Rove/Cheney governing plan was thrown badly off-balance, and had
unusual difficulty getting its regressive agenda passed.

That situation would have maintained itself for the rest of Bush's term
except that 9/11 happened, and deadly anthrax was unleashed into the halls
of Congress (directed mostly, let us not forget, at Democrat leaders).
Suddenly, thanks to al-Qaida and whoever distributed the anthrax, the Bush
program went zipping through a frightened Congress, with barely any serious
opposition.

Certainly no questions were asked about why the Bush Administration was so
ill-prepared for the terror attacks even though they had received explicit
warnings about them in the weeks and days prior to 9/11. No Democrat
politicians wanted to risk being tarred with the epithets "soft on
terrorism," or "unpatriotic" for not supporting the president during
"wartime."

When more Bush Republicans were elected, tipping the Senate back into GOP
hands, the Democrats became even more timid and disorganized. And so, devoid
of a questioning political opposition and a mass-media willing to dig for
answers, it fell to others to try to keep the flame of liberty (and
realistic thinking) burning. By and large, this task was taken up by
websites and their writers and editors on the internet, this generation's
"alternative press."

THE HONOR ROLL OF COLUMNISTS

Despite the overwhelming pro-Bush fawning of the corporate media, radio
talk-shows, newspapers, broadcast networks, cable TV "news" shows and
pundits, a relative handful of writers remain willing to speak truth to
power in the mainstream outlets. Their courage and perspicacity shine like
beacons in an otherwise dark world of pseudo-journalism in the current era,
even when their own editorial pages cave regularly to Bush&Co.

The columnist Honor Roll includes: Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert, Frank Rich and
Maureen Dowd, for example, at the New York Times; E.J. Dionne Jr., Eugene
Robinson, Harold Meyerson, Dan Froomkin, at the Washington Post; Tom
Oliphant, Robert Kuttner, James Carroll and Derrick Z. Jackson at the Boston
Globe; Seymour Hersh and Hendrick Hertzberg at The New Yorker; Robert Scheer
at the Los Angeles Times; Jay Bookman and Cynthia Tucker at the Atlanta
Constitution-Journal; Marie Coco at Newsday; Jon Carroll, Mark Morford and
David Lazarus at the San Francisco Chronicle; Joe Conason of the New York
Observer; Robyn Blumner of the St. Petersburg Times; Warren Strobel and
Jonathan Landay at Knight Ridder; the incomparable Molly Ivins in syndicated
release, the irrespressible veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas
and a few others. Plus, on the broadcast waves, Air America , a few lonely
liberal radio talk-show hosts around the country, plus Keith Olbermann,
virtually the lone cable-TV pundit willing to ask penetrating questions
about Bush policy.

One is tempted to say that these few prestigious journalists gave supportive
courage to those outside the mainstream media also to speak truth to power,
but I think it probably was the other way around -- or perhaps a
serendipitous joint venture in standing tall. The so-called "fringe"
journalists and commentators on the internet and elsewhere have never
wavered in keeping the feet of the powerful next to the fires they had set
with their determined research and incendiary critical analysis. In many
cases, these internet journalists and bloggers even forced mainstream
editors to cover political stories they had shied away from.

THE PROGRESSIVE CYBERSPHERE

When so many millions of readers had learned of important stories via the
internet writers and websites and blogs, but hadn't run across them in their
local papers or on their nightly TV news, it behooved mainstream editors to
start paying attention and not looking totally silly or "bought off" by
ignoring those same stories.

Here are some of the leading progressive websites that deserve our plaudits
for fighting the good patriotic fight for so long: AmericanPolitics.com,
AlterNet.org, AntiWar.com, BushWatch.com, BuzzFlash.com, CommonDreams.org,
Consortium News.com, CounterPunch.org, CrisisPapers.org,
DemocraticUnderground.com, Democrats.com, DemocracyNow.org,
HuffingtonPost.com, Independent-Media.TV, JuanCole.com,
MakeThemAccountable.com, MediaMatters.org, MotherJones.com,
OnlineJournal.com, OpEdNews.com, OldAmericanCentury.org, Salon.com,
Scoop.co.nz, SmirkingChimp.com, TheAmericanProspect.org, TheNation.com,
Progressive.org, TomPaine.com, Truthout.com, WorkingforChange.org, ZNet.org,
et al. (For a fuller listing, see The Dissenting Internet).

But the presence of daring websites would mean little without an immense
corps of fine researchers, columnists and bloggers willing to put their
reputations, and in some cases careers, on the line, usually for little or
no compensation. Thankfully, the liberal/progressive left and
libertarian/traditional conservatives are numerous and unafraid -- doing the
work the opposition Democrats should be doing -- even in the presence of
McCarthyite threats from Bush&Co. and their rabid supporters.

HONOR ROLL OF ANALYSTS & BLOGGERS

Here, in random order, are just a few of these regularly producing writers
who keep alive hope and intelligent resistance; this Honor Roll includes:
Arianna Huffington, Sidney Blumenthal, John W. Dean, Jonathan Turley, Bill
Moyers, Evelyn Pringle, Greg Palast, Howard Zinn, Amy Goodman, Ray McGovern,
Naomi Klein, David Podvin, Scott Ritter, Robert Parry, Jim Hightower, Ralph
Nader, Karen Kwiatkowski, Jason Leopold, Georgie Anne Geyer, Paul Craig
Roberts, Chalmers Johnson, David Swanson, Tom Engelhardt, Bill Van Auken,
David Lindorff, Alex Cockburn, Jim Lobe, Ted Rall, Elaine Cassell, Thom
Hartmann, Gary Leupp, Jennifer Von Bergen, Bob Fertik, David Corn, Ted Kahl,
Will Pitt, Jeff St. Clair, Rob Kall, Ivan Eland, Norman Solomon, Paul
Lukasiak, et al. (At the risk of seeming self-serving, I would think that
Ernest Partridge and Bernard Weiner might well be included in that list.)

In a separate category I put the professional bloggers, those who walk the
daily news tightrope, instantaneously trying to figure out what it all
means, and thus helping to guide us in the hunt for what's important. They
shine bright light into the dark caves of ignorance and apathy that is too
much of American politics these days. My favorite blogger heroes include:
Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo, Markos Moulitsas ("Kos") at DailyKos,
Duncan Black ("Atrios") at Eschaton, Billmon at the Whiskey Bar, Juan Cole,
Steve Gilliard, Digby at Hullabaloo, Kevin Drum's Political Animal, the
Corrente collective, David Neiwert at Orcinus, Brad Friedman, David Sirota,
James Wolcott, John Aravois, et al., along with the video/audio compilers at
Crooks&Liars.com. (For a much longer list, with the linked URLs, check out
our Recommended Blogsites).

ELECTORAL FRAUD SPECIALISTS

And then there are the writers who have educated all of us on the
all-important topic of electoral integrity and electoral fraud. It doesn't
really matter how correct our analyses are, and how much activism we can
generate, if the voting tabulations remain easy to manipulate and corrupt,
which is the case today and was the case in 2004, 2002 and 2000. American
democracy owes an enormous debt of gratitude to the groundbreakers in this
field: Bev Harris and the late Andy Stephenson of Black Box Voting, Mark
Crispin Miller, Greg Palast, Alastair Thompson at New Zealand's Scoop
website, and such researchers and writers as Lynn Landes, Rebecca Mercuri,
Bob Fitzrakis, Harvey Wasserman, Steven Rosenfeld, Steven Freeman, Pokey
Anderson, Ernest Partridge, Steven Hill, Kim Zetter and others.

One must not neglect the progressive online activist organizations that have
used the internet so successfully for organizing and raising funds, such as
MoveOn, True Majority, AfterDowningStreet, Codepink, and the like. (For a
fuller listing, check out the Activists' Page).

And, finally, though this article is concentrating mainly on U.S. writers
and editors and websites, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the vital
online contributions of non-Americans who help to educate us, and often are
the first to discuss the dirty little secrets of the Bush Administration.
Such as: the Guardian and Independent and Times Online in the U.K., Scoop in
New Zealand, Outlook India in India, and such writers as Robert Fisk, John
Pilger, George Monbiot, Julian Borger, Andrew Gumbel, in the UK, Arundhati
Roy in India, Salam Pax and Riverbend in Iraq, Eric Margolis and Linda
McQuaig in Canada, William Pfaff in France, et al.

These lists of names could have gone on much longer, and no doubt I've
inadvertently left out many of your favorites -- for which lapses I assume
you'll be alerting me, for future updates.

I hope you weren't bored with all those names above, but so often we take
for granted the good, solid, provocative work of those struggling daily in
the fields of journalism and commentary, especially those who match our
values. Their contributions become our daily political wallpaper, so to
speak. But it's difficult, dangerous work, I can assure you, and all of
those listed here, and many of those omitted, are true patriots and heroes
in the struggle we're all in to stop the international imperial slaughter
abroad, and the march toward a militarist police-state at home -- and, in so
doing, to help rescue the moral soul of America.

Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, was a
writer/editor with the San Francisco Chronicle for 19 years, served as an
editor of the "alternative-press" Northwest Passage in Washington State in
the '60s and early-'70s, and currently is co-editor of the progressive
website The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org). Send comments to
crisispapers@comcast.net

Copyright 2005, by Bernard Weiner

Reprinted from The Crisis Papers:
http://crisispapers.org/essays-w/plamegate.htm