Ted Rall: How America Marginalizes Millions

[Paranoid Pessimist]

A lot of people who post on DU don't like Ted Rall, but I do, even when he overstates the case. You can't call him a mealy mouthed pussy footer. http://www.uexpress.com/tedrall/

"In the United States, the government doesn't "disappear" individuals it doesn't like (unless they're of Middle Eastern descent). That job falls to the media. The other difference is that the targets aren't individuals, but entire categories of people: African-Americans, Muslims, Asians, and those with political views to the left and right of the two major parties."

You could ask Ted what views would be to the right of the Republicans: The KKK? The Militias?

"They are America's unpersons--and there are tens of millions of them . . .

". . . Decoy politics--slapping a label that doesn't really fit on a person or thing--is the media's principal method of group marginalization. White media executives can brag that they're so liberal and open-minded that they're promoting the presidential candidacy of a black* guy! Yeah, Obama is "black"--but in a relatively arcane way. You're a jerk if you notice and worse if you say so.

"Speaking of liberals, the 21 percent of Americans who call themselves liberals suffer from a near total lack of representation in government."

There is certainly no one in the mainstream of public life who represents my political views, but I'm not a liberal; I'm a radical libertarian leftist.

"Even Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described socialist, went along with the Republocratic mob. Sanders serves as yet another hollow symbol of the system's supposed openness to unorthodox politics. Sanders plays a socialist on TV, but he also voted for a Bush-backed resolution supporting the troops as they invaded Iraq. He has neither joined the Socialist Party nor promoted socialist views.

"A true socialist, even one from Vermont, wouldn't have made it to the Senate."

"A number of big-name commentators are overtly or tacitly marketed as progressives, liberals or even lefties: Alan Colmes of Fox News, Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, Al Franken and his colleagues on Air America Radio (inevitably "Air America Radio, a liberal network" in press accounts). Like their counterparts in Congress, they're leftie in name only. None opposed the Afghan war, none favor an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, and none can honestly be called left of center."

He may be wrong about Keith Olberman who has become an effective and eloquent spokesman and fact presenter against the president and his accomplices. I don't remember if he supported the war at the beginning or not. If you know, weigh in.

[Greeby]

1. Olbermann is not about left and right, he's about the truth

Or at least, as much truth one can tell on the GE network without being fired

[Vexatious Ape]

2. I think we can safely add atheists to the list of the marginalized.

[leftofthedial]

4. yup

[tom_paine]

3. K & R