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November 6, 2005

As the Republicans are Tanking, Disown the Old Democratic Party Hack Pundits While We're at It

By Rob Kall

How do we convince the netowrks to stop putting on Centrist, DLC hacks as talking heads, and replace them with tough, smart progressive voices who put the right wing echo chamber parrots in their place?

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Let's start with the pundits. I'm sick and tired of marginally Democratic "spokesmen" who usually forget they have any balls, including the women who are supposed to be representing Democratic perspectives. I'm tired of the networks bringing in these limp, impotent talking heads who don't have the spine to stand up to the lying, distoring, talking point parroting right wingers who are so much more effective.

I want to see the new generation of pundits getting air time-- people who understand the big picture, who aren't afraid to talk truth to power. There are plenty of them out there-- The challenge is how do we convince the networks to stop putting on hacks like Carville, Begala, Donna Brazile, Centrist legislators, DLC saboteurs? We need to make it clear to the networks that these people just won't do, that they are bogus representatives of the left, and that we will change the channel when they put them on.

We have to tell the corporate sponsors that we are insulted by the pathetic job these talking heads are doing and that we will not buy their products if they sponsor shows that feature these weak shills who take a fall for the right just about every time they go on TV.

Who should we be seeing? Arianna Huffington, Thom Hartmann, Al Franken, David Sirota, William Rivers Pitt, Randy Rhodes, David Swanson, Robert Parry, Greg Palast, Jim Lobe, Frank Rich, John Nichols, Molly Ivins, Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert, Maureen DOwd, Katrina Vandenheuvel, Stephanie Miller, Paul Rogat Loeb, Wayne Madsen, Jeff Cohen, Marc Crispin Miller, Bargara Ehrenreich, Mark Fiore, Ellen Goodman, Jim Hightower, Robert Jensen, Micahel Lerner, Marc Morford, Ted Rall, Bernie Sanders, Danny Schecter, Robert Scheer, Helen Thomas, Bob Fitrakis, Harvey Wasserman, Howard Zinn.John Stewart. for starters.

These are people who will not just sit and smile and let the right wing parrots spew their lies and distortions. That's what WE need. Now we have to make it happen.

Part of the challenge is access to the proper technology. The right wing think tanks and right wing centers of power own and maintaing media studios with sattelite uplinks so they can provide talking heads from all over the place. Each state shouldhave its own media resources. Each major metropolitan media area should source facilities-- either owning or leasing them, so the networks can be offered a bigger, more effective list of progressive talking heads.

Some media, probably FOX news in particular, don't want real brains connected to the talking heads they use. But I think a lot of the other shows would rather have smart, tough liberals who can spout facts and dispute right wingers. This makes for better TV, better entertainment-- much better than the smarmy vs. smarmy plastic vomit that we used to see with smarmy Tucker Carlson going up against, ineffective Carville, Begala or Brazile.

I'm glad CNN's Crossfire was cancelled. I was chronically disgusted and disappointed watching these supposed Democrats fail to come up with the tough answers and facts that should have been at their fingertips.

ONe thing you can do is send an email to the network or show when you observe a smarmy, weak pundit faking being a democrat. Complain that they are substituting bad ingredients for the real thing. Contact the advertisers on the show. Complain that the show is bogus. Strategically, it would be even more effective if a few particularly onerous shows were targetted in some organized way by larger progressive organizations and websites. This worked with Sinclair media when they were threatening to run an anti Kerry documentary. We can do this. We just have to get past the challenge that Al Sharpton described, that organizing Democrats is like herding cats. The progressive organizations and media do not coordinate nearly as well as the right wing echo chamber does.

But that's changing. And the result can be seen-- the accelerating downfall of the Right wing Republican extremists. Do you have contact info for any shows, networks, key people in the media or info on where to find it already assembled? Help us assemble a data-base and action page that enables people to easily contact the media. send it to rob@opednews.com and put the words MEDIA CONTACT INFO in the subject heading.

Authors Bio:

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.


Check out his platform at RobKall.com


He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity


He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com


more detailed bio:


Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.


Rob Kall Wikipedia Page


Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 400 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Or check out my Youtube Channel


Rob Kall/OpEdNews Bottom Up YouTube video channel


Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.


Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.


To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.


For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.


Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table

Talk Nation Radio interview by David Swanson: Rob Kall on Bottom-Up Governance June, 2017

Here is a one hour radio interview where Rob was a guest- on Envision This, and here is the transcript..


To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.


Follow Rob on Twitter & Facebook.


His quotes are here

Rob's articles express his personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.


Join the conversation:


On facebook at Rob Kall's Bottom-up The Connection Revolution


and at Google Groups listserve Bottom-up Top-down conversation





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