Saturday, January 07, 2006

Moonbat Media



We don't have one. Moonbats, for those of you who have never heard the term, are us: liberals and lefties. I like the term. It brings to mind lovely moonlit nights with the dark shadows of brave fliers silhouetted against the full moon, until, suddenly, they swoop! "Moonbats" and "wingnuts" are political terms of endearment for the other side.

A moonbat media would be something like what the wingnuts have been telling that the United States has. It has never existed, and the media today is pretty much in the backpocket of the Republican party. The media is also very dependent on the advertising income they get from corporations. This makes it tough to criticize the government or the firms. The safe thing to criticize is moonbats.

A real moonbat media would be a move against this. We do need one, though we also need a neutral media. But we are not going to get the latter, so the next best thing would be to have at least a tiny moonbat media to counteract all that wingnut fairandbalanced propaganda. Air America Radio is an attempt to do that, and perhaps it will end up working. But talkshows is not really the sole answer to what we need. Pacifica is not enough, either.

Now a new television network is being planned: Independent World Television. It will not take advertizing which makes it immune from commercial pressures. But not taking ads means that the network will need other sources of income, like donations. You can donate at the link.

I believe that Independent World Television would aim at being a neutral network. But if it turned out to be a moonbat one I'd be almost equally delighted, for the reasons spelled above. Because we really need to have an opening for all voices to be heard and for all types of news to be forecast. If the traditional media won't have us then we can't have just the traditional media.
---
Laura Flanders is great, by the way, if you are looking for well-done radio with a liberal slant.