The Oscars: Too New, or Too Old?

As a New Age Democrat, I am also a huge fan of movies. Or, to be more accurate, I am a huge fn of movies that speak about the human condition and give us advice on how to improve it. Thus, I like movies that provide a message instead of seeking to merely entertain. I like movies that show real tensions in life and suggest ways to resolve them. I especially like movies that show the use of technology or communication to change the way we live or understand the way we live. For instance, one of the recent movies I like is "Cellular", which shows the use of information technology to save a woman from kidnappers and put kidnappers in prison.

The biggest problem with being New Age - loving information technology and all the empowerment it brings - is that there is too much information. There are too many movies to watch, too many channels to watch on Cable and Network television, too many books to read, too many newspaper articles to read from around the world, and too many events to be aware of. Consequently, I rely on rankings to help guide me to the best. I also rely on reviews. I have used books reviews to guide me to helpful political books and steer clear of unhelpful fiction. Thus, I own MoveOn.org's 50 ways to help your country, and I have not read a single line of "The Corrections", by Jonathan Franzen. The former provides useful advice to make a difference while the latter shows the horrible condition of some people without offering advice about how to help that condition. I know this from the reviews. Simply put, I choose to be inspired by movies and television shows that I watch, or by books and articles that I read. If I know that something probably won't inspire me, I stay away from it.
Hence, we come to Sunday night's Oscar show. There are too divergent opinions on the show. One offered by USA Today and the other offered by The New York Times. USA Today laments the new format of Sunday's show, saying it distracted viewers from the awards themselves. It says that the producers of the show didn't take the Oscars seriously enough, and asks, "Doesn't anyone have a sense of occasion anymore? " The New York Times, in contrast, praises the new format, but says the show is too old for its own good. For the New York Times, the Oscars show takes the Oscars too seriously, especially when there are so many other awards shows that come before the Oscars: The Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild, the People's Choice, to name the most prominent awards show. These shows all feature the exact same nominees, the exact same winners, and the exact same speeches for the most part. Consequently, the Oscars offer no surprises, and people simply stop watching.

For people like me, who love movies, the Oscars show offers a form of ritual. I watch the show in order to be inspired. However, I must ask myself: why do I watch only the Oscars to be inspired, and not the many other awards shows? The answer has three parts. First, the Oscars are the most important awards show, so the winner of the Oscars gets promoted more in our media culture. Second, the Oscars has a long history, and the other awards shows don't. Finally, the Oscars highlights movies that I will want to see because I judge the opinion of the actors themselves as more legitimate than the opinions of the audience. I don't watch the Golden Globes because the awards are given by the Foreign Press Association, not by the actors. I don't watch the People's choice awards for the same reason. The closest show to the Oscars is the Screen Actor's Guild because it has an accurate record of predicting the Oscar winner. Yet, the SAG awards lack the history that the Oscars have.

So, what exactly makes the Oscars different from the other awards shows? Here are some important reasons. Actors dream about winning the Oscar, and they prepare their Oscar speeches from childhood. They do not dream of winning the Golden Globe, the People's Choice Award, the SAG, or any other awards. Why don't actors dream about winning other awards? This gets to the second reason why the Oscars are different. The Oscars, because of their history, carry cultural weight. First, they provide some instruction about which movies are important. But, even for the people who follow their own guidance when picking movies, the Oscars tell us who we should admire. This is what makes the Oscars stand out from the other awards programs. The People's Choice Awards and the Golden Globes largely celebrate celebrities. In other words, we watch them because we want to see famous people, and the awards are our way of saying "thank you for being famous."

Yet, fame doesn't actually mean anything. A person must be famous for actually doing something important and intelligent. We live in a celebrity culture that celebritizes people, and popularizes celebrities. This is the seesaw of celebrity culture. Reality shows, awards shows, talk shows, magazines, and other media, take ordinary people, or somewhat interesting people, and tell us, you should like this person because he is a celebrity, even though the person may be no different from any of us. The celebrity is artificial, and it can fade as quickly as it is bestowed on a person. "15 minutes" of fame last ONLY 15 minutes because the famous person isn't actually blessed with any gifts or talent to make us keep paying attention. The awards shows provide the opposite side of the celebrity culture. They take genuinely talented people and tell us, "see these famous people, they are just like you and me, except they are in movies and on TV." Thus, we see genuine talent, and the awards show tells us to ignore the talent, focus on the person. The celebrity is made to be ordinary, thanking mother and father, wife or husband, agent and director. The celebrity merely says, "I am not all that special because I have interesting people around me." This is somewhat accurate, but the real reason the celebrity is surrounded by interesting people is because they share a craft, or an art, and the celebrity happens to be better at the craft than other people.

So, reality TV and minor awards shows tell us to think of ordinary, untalented people as celebrities even though they aren't. Major award shows tell us to think of celebrities as ordinary, untalented people, even though they are not. The Oscars present the only show in which genuinely talented and extraordinary people are minted as the new celebrities, while current celebrities are cherished for their talent and art without trying to pass them off as ordinary. The Oscars draw a line in the sand, saying, some people are talented, most people are not. We give the award for talent, not for the sake of turning people into celebrities. Thus, Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears may be cute, but they have no real talent. The various awards shows that precede the Oscars don't tell us this, but the Oscars can be counted on to shut out Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears. Hence, it is a surprise when Eminem wins an Oscar, but not when Clint Eastwood wins an Oscars. Eminem has been celebritized. He has some talent, but no more talent than anyone else. Clint Eastwood, on the other hand, is a true genius. The Oscars verify this fact while the other award shows try to hide it.

This is ultimately why I watch the Oscars. When celebrities win awards at other shows, they rarely talk about the art or the talent. Instead, they talk about themselves and about each other. We don't expect interesting, thought-provoking speeches, and we are surprised if someone gives such a speech. In contrast, the Oscars gives award winners the chance to talk about the art. That is why we get so bored with the winners merely thanking everyone they know. We not only expect a thought-provoking speech, we desperately want it. We want to be touched emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually by the actors at the Oscars in the same way that their movies or songs have touched us. While other award shows allow us to thank celebrities for being celebrities, the Oscars allow us to thank celebrities and non-celebrities for affecting us deeply and helping to change our lives. This is why it matters that Halle Berry, or Adrien Brody, or Jamie Foxx, or Michael Moore, or Tom Hanks, gives a good, stirring, emotional, thought-provoking speech at the Oscars. At any other award show, the speech is an after-thought. At the Oscars, the speech is the most important part. However, it is only important for the actors, directors and producers. It is not important for the technical people. The technical people do not affect us emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually the way the actors, directors, and musicians do.

So, I consider Oscar night 2005 to not only be a success, but to be the best night ever. First, it had a smart, provocative host, Chris Rock, who told us the truth about movies. Some people have genuine talent, others do not. Movies stars have genuine talent, and that is why they are stars. Everyone else has less talent. Movies should provoke us, not just entertain us. Hence, Farhenheit 9/11 and the Passion of the Christ are more important than Barber Shop or Soul Plane. Chris Rock spoke the truth, and the truth shocked many people in the audience. Next, the awards themselves gave genuinely talented people a chance to speak. It was a pleasure to watch dignified Morgan Freeman accept and award, just as it was a pleasure to watch Cate Blanchett. Both Hilary Swank and Jamie Foxx gave inspiring speeches. I knew they would win, just as I knew the previous actors would win, but I didn't watch to see who would win. I wanted to hear inspiring words. Both Swank and Foxx delivered. Both Swank and Foxx are real people who have lots of talent. That is why they won the awards. We don't watch them to see who will win, we watch to see how they got that talent in the first place. Swank told us: she had a dream. Foxx told us: his grandmother trained him, and he talks to her even though she is dead. Both Freeman and Blanchett gave speeches that didn't address their talent, but that is because they don't have a technique to be talented. Freeman is naturally dignified while Blanchett is naturally poised and independent, just like Katherine Hepburn, who she played in The Aviator.

The other award shows do give the winners the opportunity to make speeches, but the speeches mostly focus on the production process of the art: thanking directors, screenwriters, technicians, etc. The speeches at other awards shows don't aim to make a statement or to inspire. We watch the Oscars because we want the speeches to make inspiring statements. Indeed, it is because we expect serious, inspiring statements that we get alarmed at humorous, ironic statements that winners make, like James Cameron joking that "I'm the king of the world." He was joking, but the rest of Hollywood didn't get the joke.

So, I appreciate the efforts of the Oscars show to become more efficient and entertaining. I want to see speeches by the actors, not by the technical winners. While the technical winners may make humorous statements, I want to be inspired. Oscar night 2005 focused on the actors, not the technical winners. When the technical winners did give boring speeches, at least I had a cool set to look at. I appreciate Chris Rock. He told the truth about movies, about actors, and about the importance of movies. I expect a host to lecture to the audience, because that is the role of the host: assess the good and the bad in the industry, give the audience some way to measure the talent of each actor, or the worth of each movie. Once the host gives the audience the means to measure actors and movies, the audience then determines whether it agrees with the choice of the winner. As a movie lover, I want to have the same power in choosing winners as the actors themselves. Since I don't have that power, I at least want to know whether the choices make sense. If I agree that they make sense, I can spend my time and money to see the movie and check out what I have been missing. The last thing I want is an award show to point me toward a movie or song that isn't really worthy of my time and resources. The Oscars have the credibility, but the other award shows do not. The best movies do not always get nominated, or even win the Oscar, but at least the Oscars give me an accurate indication of what I will probably enjoy. The other award shows tend to give inaccurate indications.

I believe this is why many people have turned away from critics and award shows. They disagree with the judgment of the critics and the assessment of the award shows. Thus, many people go to see movies that they think they will enjoy, only to find that they were fooled by the critic or award show. I don't want to be fooled, and I don't want to go see every movie ever made. Hence, I rely on the Oscar show because its past choices have proven accurate in pointing me toward movies and music that I enjoy. Its past is a heavy factor in the present.

So, I don't really want the Oscars to move into the 21st century, as the New York Times suggests. I want the Oscars to continue to highlight inspiring movies in which characters overcome struggle in order to succeed in an endeavor. I don't want to watch a movie in which characters are falling apart, and I don't want the Oscars to highlight them. People may fall apart and get depressed in real life, but I don't care about real life. My deepest desire is for a movie to give my help in changing real life into something better. A movie with a message is a tool for me to help myself and others. A movie without a message serves no purpose except to entertain, and I don't need to "pass the time". I already have too many things to do in my life, and not enough time to do them. I am not bored or depressed, and I don't want a movie to make me bored or depressed. This is why I dislike "Lost in Translation" and "The Girl with the Pearl Earring". They pass the time more than anything else, and they don't provide me with any help to improve my life. They feature characters who are largely falling apart, and need someone to come to their rescue. I want the Oscars to take movies, and itself, seriously, because I take movies, and myself seriously. I don't laugh at myself, though I laugh easily. Thus I don't expect an awards show to laugh at itself or at me. However, I also want the Oscars, or any awards show, to take the right things seriously, not the wrong things. I don't want to be pointed to things that are meaningless - meaning that they don't help me and only pass the time. I do want to be pointed to things that will give me better tools to deal with the world around me.

Thus, the Oscars must strike a balance: focus on the things that matter to people, and spend less time on things that we don't really care about. Tell me the truth about movies, actors, and different works of art. Don't try to create something out of nothing, or turn something into nothing. Help me distinguish between what is real and what is fake, what is good and what is bad, what is useful and what is useless. If an awards show accomplishes that, I will remember it and cherish it as I watch it.

Why Culture matters (and why Conservatives have the wrong values)

I started this effort by saying that culture, or values, matter more than economic issues, and that the community is the means of transmitting those values. Moreover, for conservatives, values matter more than economic issues because it helps them develop communities in places where none existed.

However, when liberals talk about values, and conservatives talk about them, they mean two very different things. The problem is that when liberals talk about values, they talk about values in terms that turn conservatives off.

Conservatives talk about values in the same way that liberals talk about dependency theory in economics. For conservatives, there is such a thing as "normal". Normal is a condition of life in which you have a job, you are married, you have kids, you respect your president, your minister, you neighbors, and yourself. You do not take drugs, you pray to God, you help nurture your children, you make money, and you care for your community. When liberals look at these conditions, they don't see "normal". They see "one way" of living, among many other ways. Thus, it is not necessary to have a job, or to be married, or to have kids, or to respect your presidency, or to like your neighbors, or even to like yourself. Moreover, liberals consider drugs to be more normal, and praying to God to be abnormal. Liberals also don't really believe in the concepts of children, money, or community.

That's a lot to say in one paragraph, so let's dissect it. For conservatives, having a job is normal because it helps one earn an income. For liberals, having a job is nice, but more important is being true to yourself. Liberals see the majority of jobs as mere corporate tools to destroy one's spirit. Thus, they think of a job as an abnormal way to live. That's why the biggest liberals are artists. They produce from the source of spirit, and they think all jobs take that production ability away from them.Thus, where conservatives see normalcy, liberals see a condition that is loaded with oppression, depression, and sickness.

For conservatives marriage is normal, especially between a man and a woman, because it helps produce children, and it helps keep you connected with a person you love. In contrast, for liberals, marriage is a tool for oppression, especially because marriage involves compromise. They see marriage as a power relationship, in which two partners - male and female - are always competing for domination. This struggle eventually leads to divorce because the couple either get tired of the competition, or one of them wins the competition and the other decides to leave the marriage. What liberals value is equality in all aspects of life, and they think marriage is based on inequality because of this competition.

For conservatives, having kids is normal because you are trying to preserve and promote the human race. For liberals, kids are more of a byproduct of sex. Since liberals are suspicious of jobs and marriage, they are also suspicious of children because they know that a job is required to support children. Liberals do love kids, but they don't really believe in "nurturing" kids in the way that conservatives do. To nurture is to provide a supportive environment that guides the children into endeavors that will help them be productive members of society who have careers and relationships. Liberals don't really want to guide children because they few guidance as a way to oppress a child's inner talent, especially if the guidance is supposed to push children into areas of live that will destroy their talent, such as jobs and marriage. Thus, liberals treat children as little adults who are independent of the parents, with the ability to make the kinds of decisions that the parents make. Conservatives see children as pure beings who cannot make decisions on their own. This is why liberals tend to send their children to public schools, where they can be exposed to different environments that will help them make decisions, while conservatives send their children to private school in order to provide discipline.

For conservatives, repecting the president, or any leadership role, is normal because you recognize that critical function of leadership in preserving the integrity of society. Liberals, on the other hand, see leadership as victory in dominating others. They really don't believe in leadership per se. They believe in leaders as the best followers of collective decisions. Thus, leaders simply implement groupthink. As a result, leaders must keep a low profile as they implement decisions. If a leader has a high profile, liberals attack the leader because he thinks the leader is taking away the decision-making ability of everyone else.

Conservatives believe in the concept of "normal" because they believe there is a natural order for human affairs, and that as long as people recognize that order, society runs smoothly. Liberals believe the concept of "normal" is artificial because there is no natural order, and that society is not supposed to run smoothly. Instead, there is struggle everywhere, and liberals want to keep the struggle going. The struggle, or tension, exists within oneself, in communities, and in all areas of life. People struggle over their sexual orientation, their economic and political beliefs, they relationships, their families, and so on. Thus, if there is a condition called "normal", in which there is no struggle, liberals think someone is being oppressed and suffering silently.

This is why liberals focus on oppressed minorities, because they believe that, no matter where you look, there is a minority opinion that needs to be heard. When conservatives look at this focus, they call it "elitism", because they think that liberals are simply saying that a particular group should be in charge of things. For conservatives someone must always be in charge, and that person must do his best to recognize the opinion of minorities. Thus, conservatives don't think oppression exists, since the leaders automatically incorporate their opinons into decisions. When they see liberals pointing to "oppression", they think liberals are really trying to replace the leader with some other group. Thus, conservatives automatically think liberals are saying "we are better than you are", because conservatives automatically think in terms of better and worse, leaders and followers.

Culture now matters more than money

Since starting this endeavor, I have claimed one truth. Conservatives and the Republican Party no longer care about the economy or wealth, because they think culture is more important. This truth provides the path for Democratic Victory.

Harold Meyerson notes that Democratic support among the white working class has collapsed.
Ruy Teixeira argues that, based on the exit polls from 2004, Kerry lost among white southern moderates by 15 points, while Clinton won them by 2 points in 1996. The problem with this analysis is that the exit poll data used to support this conclusion is largely false, because the exit polls were revised to match the "official result" that was manipulated by electronic voting machines. However, until we know the actual result, we must assume that this data is correct because it is all we have.

The reason Clinton won in 1996 is because he made a single, very persuasive argument: It's the Economy, Stupid. What he meant was the following: "The Republicans are a bunch of fanatical moralists who want to tell you how to live your life, without providing you with the economic ability to live your life. I, on the other hand, will not tell you how to live your life, but I will provide you with the economic ability to live your life." This was a very credible argument because the Republican party had painted itself into a corner in 1992, 1994, and 1996, claiming that the real problem in the U.S. was the falling moral standards. In 1992 Bush lost because the economy was bad and because Patrick Buchanan had convinced a majority of voters that all the Republican Party cared about was saving your soul, not helping your pocketbook. Clinton was a safe bet because he agreed with most conservative cultural issues - he was pro-death penalty, anti-gun control, pro-balanced budget - but he didn't preach about cultural issues. When he had an affair with an intern, he could credibly claim that what really mattered to the country was not the morality of the country, but how financially prosperous everyone was. With the Internet Economy booming, this was a reasonable claim.

8 years later, the environment is different. The terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, provided ammunition for the Republicans to say, "See, we were right all along about the moral condition of the country, and this is what happened. Clinton did nothing to prevent this from happening because he only cared about money. Well, money doesn't protect people's lives, but moral standards do protect lives." Thus, the conclusion many people were forced to make after that day was this: "Maybe I don't have to become a high-powered CEO. Maybe my mission in life is to be a good Dad/Mom/Wife/Friend/Lover. " Since the areas of attack were the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the implicit message was that "wealth is dangerous". Consequently, many people started to believe that not only was it more important to have moral standards than to be rich, they also started to believe that wealth creates lax morals. Thus, the richer a person is, the more sacrilegious he is. This belief was reinforced on television and movies, where reality TV shows, MTV, and other elements of pop culture were showing people doing the most insane things for money.

As a result of this changed environment, the Republican Party now argues, "Moral standards are the only way to protect our way of life from terrorists", and many people agree with them. In contrast, the Democratic Party now says, "Morality isn't as important as wealth", which causes many white, working class people to think that the Democratic Party never learned the lesson from the terrorist attacks. Hence, the message voters send to the Democrats is, "we care more about morality and our way of life than we care about getting rich, because if we are rich we ignore our loved ones, and we ignore God and community."

Thus, the problem with the Democrats is the problem that every party or army faces after defeat. They think they can win the way they fought the last war or battle. They don't realize that the environment has changed, and that a new message is needed.

The United States now cares very little about economic prosperity. Instead, it cares much more about having a community. Republicans provide that community through church, talk radio, and cable television. The Democrats have not yet learned how to provide a community because the only thing they know how to do is criticize the bad content in church, talk radio, and cable television. Thus, Republicans provide a function, and Democrats focus on the form instead of the function. What Democrats need to do is find ways to provide the same function, but in a better form.

Conservative Anger and Liberal Anger

It is well known among liberal democrats that Conservatives in general, and talk show/cable television in particular are filled with anger. Conservatives call liberals traitors, and haters of America. Conservatives say they are angry at liberals for trying to destroy America. Meanwhile, liberals are angry at conservatives for succeeding in destroying America.

Let's analyze this so that we can understand exactly what each side is trying to achieve. After all, anger is simply an emotional tool used by humans to say "no" to something, while joy is an emotional tool that is used to say "yes". So, what do conservatives and liberals want?

For conservatives, the answer is simply. They want a country that no longer exists. They idealize America to the point of idolatry, and want to return to the late 19th century, before Roosevelt, the Civil Rights movement, women's liberation, and homosexuality. Conservatives want a country with no income tax, no social programs, no hint of a welfare state, where the capitalists control the government, where the business of government is business, and states are left to do as they please. For instance, the Supreme Court case of Plessy vs. Ferguson was decided in 1892, and it left the country in a condition of "Separate but Equal" for African Americans and white people. Women did not yet have the right to vote, and African Americans were not able to vote. But, this is exactly how conservatives want the country to be. They don't want to legally oppress women or blacks anymore, but conservatives want a country in which everyone has a place, everyone knows their place, and everyone stays in their place. Thus, conservatives want a social life that returns to the condition of the late 19th century. Economically, they want to eliminate the income tax, and eliminate all federal interference with the state.

The problem is that this idea of America no longer exists. We now live in a country that has an entrenched welfare state, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs. We have an income tax, and progressive tax rates.

Thus, for conservatives, the logic is simple. They love the country the way it used to be, and they hate the way the country is now. Since liberals love the way the country is now, including all those social programs, the logical connection that conservatives make is that liberals hate the way the country used to be. Yet, conservatives go one step further. They say that the way the country used to be, in the late 19th century, is really the way the United States is SUPPOSED to be, the way the Founding Fathers intended the United States to be. So, if liberals love the country the way it is now, they must logically hate the way the country is supposed to be. This leads directly to conservatives thinking of liberals as traitors, whether liberals are ordinary citizens or presidents. Conservative anger is directed at eliminating all of the social programs that the government supports through taxes., and redirecting social activism to the areas of life that are supposed to take care of people: church, business, and family. Consequently, conservatives tend to be Christians, they tend to like corporations or private enterprise, and they like family. These are the areas of society that are SUPPOSED to promote social change, they say, not the government.

Conversely, we can now understand the source of liberal anger. Liberals look back at the history of these institutions - church, business, and family. They see the following. First, the Christian church is an oppressive institution because it was used to enforce particular type of economic oppression and family oppression. The Bible was used to promote slavery, with Southern Christians saying that Slavery was good for Negroes. The Bible was and still is used to promote the submission of wives to their husbands. Consequently, liberals want to avoid using the church to promote progress in society because it too easily leads to oppression. Next, they look at business. They see that business, especially in the 19th century, was used to promote oppression in society by controlling legislators, preventing women and minorities from achieving success, and preventing the nation from having a fair society. Finally, liberals look at the family. They see a history of husbands oppressing wives financially by preventing wives from working or getting an education, and they see physical oppression, especially in the form of spousal abuse. As a result of looking at the histories of church, business, and family, the last thing liberals want to do is trust these institutions to promote social change. Hence, the only source left to promote social justice is the government, including the president and the congress, but mainly involving the courts.

Liberal anger is the result of conservatives succeeding in eliminating the social programs and economic progress that came out of the 20th century. But, more importantly, it is the result of liberals witnessing conservatives engaging in underhanded means to destroy this social and economic progress. These underhanded means include the spread of prejudice against homosexuals and other minority groups (black, Arabs, Hispanics, etc.) They also include the use of "goons" to spread lies about liberal candidates and people through the conservative press.

Liberal anger peaked with the 2004 election, because liberal saw the Republicans start to succeed in eliminating 100 years of social and economic progress. Now, we have a situation that is characterized by both anger and despair. On the one hand, moderate liberals despair at the fact that the official results of the 2004 election showed the Republicans winning more seats in Congress and winning the presidency. On the other hand, true liberals are angry because they know that Republicans rigged the 2004 election to win the presidency, and improve their margins in Congress.

According to the exit polls from the 2004 election, Kerry won among independents and moderates by a healthy margin. Moreover, Alan Abramowitz reveals that the Democrats out-mobilized the Republicans in 2004. The size of both parties is equal, so the Democrats logically won the 2004 election. Yet, Bush "won". This is like seeing a computer produce the equation 2+2=5 about 10 times in a row. We know that 2+2=4. That's the way politics works. The whole is equal to the sum of the parts. Exit polls are accurate because they aggregate the votes of the people who actually voted, and they match that aggregate with the actual results. Thus, if the Republicans and Democrats are equal in strength, with Republican and Democratic voters being very loyal to their parties, then the most important voter is the moderate, or swing voter. If a candidate wins those moderate and swing voters, AND he gets more people from his own party to vote for him, then the candidate must win the election. It cannot be any other way.
However, the only way the result can turn out different is if there is fraud. When you see the equation 2+2=5 coming up, you know that the computer is broken. When you see the actual results contradicting the sum of the parts, you know the electoral process is broken. This is why supporters for Kerry consistently claim that it was statistically impossible for him to lose the 2004 election, since he won all of the important parts of the election.

So, liberal voters are angry at the Republicans for stealing the 2004 election. Yet, the one thing conservatives love to do is criticize liberals for being so angry. They call this "Bush Hatred", and say that liberals should simply deal with their anger.

This is perfectly understandable. Conservatives have succeeded by using anger to mobilize their base, and the last thing they want the liberals to do is succeed using the same methods. The last thing they want liberals to do is use their anger to find out what conservatives have actually done to steal the election. Hence, conservatives are basically telling liberals, "I can do it, but you can't".

It is time for liberals to start using anger in the same way that conservatives have used it. The first order of business is to find out how the Republicans stole the 2004 election. The most obvious place to look is in the programming code of the electronic voting machines.

The Abortion Fixation

I started out this endeavor by noting that conservatives and swing voters believe that cultural issues trump economic issues. One of the biggest trump cards is abortion. So, the question is: should democrats and liberals care about the impact that abortion has on conservatives and swing voters?

As a New Age Democrat, I think of abortion as a fixation, in much the same way as I think of immigration or flag burning as fixations. A fixation is an emotional response to a subject the ignores the reality of the world, going against global trends into order to promote the fixation. For instance, flag burning and immigration are fixations because we live in a globalized world in which global travel is increasing, more citizens are becoming global citizens (holding two, three, or more passports), and more people have access to information from all over the world thanks to information technologies. Flag burning is a fixation on the receding impact of nationalism and patriotism. It is very difficult to get excited about a national identity, or to be patriotic, when you live in multiple countries throughout the year and travel in cosmopolitan groups. Immigration is a fixation on the receding impact on uniform cultures, or traditional cultures. Many people now live around immigrants from India, China, Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean. We travel easily, and we live in neighborhoods that are increasingly diverse. It is very difficult to get excited about immigration when your best friend may be from Morocco and your past girlfriend was from Egypt, your present girlfriend is from Japan, and your next girlfriend will be from Nigeria. People are sampling cultures now the way they used to sample products in the market. Indeed, so much of commerce is now standardized that the only true adventure comes from mixing and matching cultural experiences.

Thus, abortion is a fixation on the declining historical standard of women as mothers and not as professionals. In today's world, any person can become anything. When people sample different cultures, they try to be cautious and have safe sex, but they do produce unwanted pregnancies. It is much more important for people to be able to continue sampling different cultures and lifestyles, and choose to have a baby in the chosen culture, with the chosen lifestyle, instead of having a baby at the inappropriate time.

This is why the news media is starting to talk about a new kind of period in adult life in which people who are in their twenties are still living with their parents as they sample the changing cultures around them. Time Magazine called them "twixters", because they are between and betwixt childhood and adulthood. Time argued that the economic conditions for achieving financial independence are tougher, and people are more picky about what kinds of lifestyles they lead. However, the real reason many people are choosing to stay at home is because the world is starting to come to them. We no longer need to travel to see exotic cultures. Cable television, the Internet, e-mail, and the immigrant family next door bring exotic cultures right to us.

Thus, abortion is a tool to make sure the timing of adulthood is right. As a New Age society, we no longer want to pressure people to abide by the choices that their parents were forced to make - between career and family. We want our citizens to find the right careers and figure out what they should do with their lives. When they find out, they will be ready to have children. Abortion is an essential tool to delay the entrance to adulthood until a person has made that choice about their lives. Tools are neither good nor bad. They simply serve a purpose. We need to recognize the positive purpose that abortion serves in our culture instead of treating it as a vestige of a vanishing traditional culture. Thus, I would rather have kids when I can give them a high quality life, even if it means having one or more abortions while I wait for that quality life to start. I do not want to have children before my quality life starts, and be forced to abandon my idea of a quality life because parenthood is too distracting. As a human being I have the right to be selfish with my life. The last thing I want is to have children who I push to live the dream that I never had the chance to experience. I don't want my kids to be better off than me. I want to be better off to begin with so that my kids can share in the experience and help me sustain the lifestyle that we want. Abortion, and family planning, are the only tools we have to make sure we can live our dreams.

Why move to Canada (or, Why is Bush so bad)?

It is increasingly common for liberal Americans to decide to move to Canada after Nov. 2, 2004. The reasons are articulated somewhat, but it is necessary to fully explain why Canada is suddenly so appealing, and why Bush is what drove liberal Americans away.

The most basic reason is not Bush, personally, but what Bush represents. Ronald Reagan was just as hated by liberals throughout the 1980s, but Reagan never induced liberals to leave the country. Reagan had two things that Bush doesn't have. Reagan had peace and prosperity. Bush has neither. Now, ordinarily, when the country is at war and suffering economically, patriotic citizens stay to rebuild the country and fight against foreign enemies. Yet, this is not happening. The following reasons help us explain this.

• The United States is not in a necessary war for its survival against an entrenched enemy who could destroy us. Instead, neo-conservatives and the Religious Right have fabricated the conditions for an unnecessary war by portraying a small, loosely organized group of individuals - who got lucky on Sept. 11, 2001, by sneaking past our defenses - as the forefront of a tyrannical empire that can destroy the United States. This is a fabrication because there is no country, or group of countries, that can possibly destroy the United States either by launching nuclear weapons at it, invading it, or bankrupting it. Terrorism is a threat, but it is not a threat to national security. A threat to national security entails a threat to the lives of our elected leaders, and it must be continuous. The United States faces no such continuous threat to the lives of its elected leaders, or even to the lives of its people. Hence, Bush represents the fabrication of threat, the fabrication of unnecessary war, and thus he represents meaningless destruction. The neo-conservatives who write Bush's foreign policy know that terrorists are not a threat to our existence or way of life; instead, they simply want to promote American power, and use terrorist as a pretext for that promotion. Bush represents the Evil Empire now more than the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany ever did. Bush uses the same rhetoric that was used by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany: saving western civilization, promoting our values, and protecting us from threat. The world saw through the false rhetoric of the Nazis and the Soviets, recognizing it as a raw quest for power masked as the attempt to save the world. The world now recognizes the false rhetoric that Bush uses. That's why the world sees him as a greater threat to the world than any small group of terrorists.

• The United States is unchallenged in its military or economic superiority, and so the biggest challenge comes from within. Liberals are not afraid of Bush. They are afraid of his supporters, now called the "American Taliban". The Religious Right is trying to turn the United States into a theocracy. They can succeed by eliminating the legal right to an abortion, and by changing the composition of the courts so that religious doctrine is promoted through laws. The United States is becoming exactly the kind of country that the Founder Fathers feared: a religious dictatorship. This religious dictatorship is supported by the deliberate ignorance of reality and science. Liberals can easily communicate with people who are up-to-date on the latest social and scientific research. Indeed, they seek out conversations based on these topics. Yet, they are being countered by religious people who deny the opportunity to communicate about these topics. The government does not need to have any laws prohibiting conversation on scientific topics; the Religious Right is promoting social censorship at the local level, such as in school boards and classrooms.

• Finally, Liberals do not have the ability to implement changes through the electoral process. Conservatives have convinced themselves that they have "won" because the rest of the country agrees with conservative ideas. However, in reality, the rest of the country agrees with liberal ideas about society, but conservative ideas about economics. Ronald Reagan made his greatest impact on the economic life of the country, not on the security of the country or the social life of the country. Liberals were trying to use economic tools in the 1960s and 70s to affect the security issues and social life of the country. When Reagan made an impact on the economic front, Liberal simply shifted to the social front and ignored the security front. Thus, while the Soviet Union collapsed quietly, surprising everyone, conservatives achieved economic victories while liberals achieved social victories. Now, with Bush, conservatives are attacking liberals on the economic front, the social front, and the security front. With this in mind, Liberals saw the 2004 election as the Do or Die election. Either get rid of Bush, or the United States is destroyed as a country. That's why Liberals went out to register new voters and get them to the polls on election day. Yet, on election day, Liberals discovered that conservatives had engineered election results in the following ways:

1. the thousands of new democratic voters that had been signed up to vote were not allowed to vote because of (a) legal challenges to their identity, residence, and citizenship; (b) the burden of time as these challenges were conducted, and because there were too few voting machines to go around (half as many compared to the primaries); (c) the changed results of the electronic voting machines, where voters picked Kerry, but then had their votes switched to Bush.
2. When Liberals realized this, they went to the Democratic Party, telling them that everyone had voted for Kerry, but that these various mechanisms had allowed Bush to win an illegitimate victory. The Democratic Party denied the Liberals a fair hearing, arguing that the Liberals were simply angry that Bush had won, and that the result could not be changed. In other words, the Liberals saw the election as Life or Death, while the Democratic Party saw the election as win or lose.
3. Hence, the Liberals lost faith in the ability of their leaders to secure legitimate electoral results. The Liberals knew that the election had been rigged, and that more people agreed with liberal social values than conservative social values. Yet, the Democratic leaders were too wimpy to do anything about these concerns.
4. The basic problem is that the Democratic Leadership is afraid of the Liberals, because it thinks, incorrectly, that the country actually agrees with the conservatives on social issues as well as economic issues. The Democratic Party is no longer an effective tool for Liberals to use to change the country, and since the Democratic Party is broken, Liberals have no choice but to go where the Democratic Party has succeeded: Canada.

I have chosen not to move to Canada because I live in one of the most liberal cities in the country, New York City. However, I also know that the national Democratic Party is broken because it is deluded that the country agrees with conservative social values rather than liberal social values. I know that the country is really liberal socially. Thus, I have made a vow. I will not vote in an any House, Senate, or Presidential race until the Democratic Party realizes that the rest of the country actually agrees with it on social matters and security issues. The real impact takes place at the local level, so that is where I will be active.

The puzzle of Iraq

Recently, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote that it is imperative that Iraq becomes a stable, democratic nation with a social contract because this is the best way to defeat terrorism by giving the opponents of terrorism a voice. He cites Palestine as an example where democracy led to a decrease in violence because of the presence of elections that allowed opponents of violence to have a say. Finally, he says that Democrats must support this, because otherwise they are irrelevant.There is a very simple reason why Friedman is wrong, both about the Middle East and about Iraq's position in the middle east. Democracy has nothing to do with terrorism, and a democratic Iraq has not influence on terrorism. What does have an influence on terrorism is the existence of a prosperous state that taps into the New Age technologies, including information technologies, to help provide jobs for people. Friedman is confusing means and ends.

The countries of Southeast Asia have used state-guided economic development, with emphasis on information technology, to improve the welfare of their citizens very quickly. Indonesia has the biggest Muslim population in the world, yet it does not export terrorism.Islam has no inherent connection with terrorism, and neither does democracy. What does have an inherent connection with terrorism are two emotions: humiliation and desperation. The governments of the Middle East, including Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and others, may have dictatorships or elected representatives with a social contract, institutions, a constitution, and laws that enforce contracts, but they will disappear unless there are fundamental economics put in place to spread opportunity.

The word "freedom" in this context is rather meaningless. What is most important is the ability of young Arabs to use resources to make their dreams come true. Having access to resources gives young Arabs the ability to dream. The problem is that the distribution of resources is skewed in the middle east toward the ruling families. Even if there is democracy and a social contract, this distribution will remain skewed. Hence, millions of Arab men and women will be out of work, and thus good candidates to become terrorists since they have no other way to make their lives productive and meaningful.The central problem is thinking that terrorism is a question of religion and regime type. In reality, it is a question of economic production and technology.

Allow more people to have access to the economy through technology - as they do in the U.S. and Western Europe - and terrorism naturally decreases because terrorist cells are not able to recruit people who are busy making themselves creative and productive. You need strong states in the Middle East to spread the economy to more people. Democracy by itself does not produce strong states. Technology does produce strong states.

Combatting Conservative Arguments, Part 2

It is accepted wisdom among Conservatives in the Republican Party that the reason the Democrats are out of power in the Congress, the courts, the White House, the state houses, and the state assemblies, is because the Conservatives have won the battle of ideas. A current book by George Lakoff called "Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives", accepts this argument and purportedly shows Democrats how to frame better arguments using better language. The problem is that this argument is wrong. Democrats have not lost the war over ideas.

Here is a history of the Republican and Democratic Parties, and why one has succeeded while the other failed. It has nothing to do with the persuasiveness of ideas. It has to do with the ability of each party to implement their ideas.

The Republican Party uses top-down leadership: the base elect the leadership based on a coherent ideology, and the leadership then tell the base how to implement that ideology. The leadership doesn't care what people outside the base think; they simply want to enlarge their base. Consequently, the leadership tells the base to do any number of things, both legal and illegal, to win elections, while the base supports these instructions because they know that the leadership agrees with its ideology.

The Democratic Party is divided between bottom-up leadership and top-down leadership. The top-down leadership don't care about the ideology of the base, and they are actually afraid of that ideology, thinking that it causes them to lose elections based on the argument that the American people have adopted conservative ideas and rejected liberal ideas. The Democratic Base also doesn't care about the Democratic Leadership, but it accepts the Democratic Leadership as the only way to win elections because of the argument that the American people have adopted conservative ideas and rejected liberal ideas. Hence, the Democratic Leadership tries to appeal to swing voters who are more likely to have conservative ideas, while the Democratic Base tries to get the vote out from the base. The Leadership and the base do not communicate well because they dislike each other.

So, to summarize, the Republicans are internally coherent, but they don't care what people outside the party think about them. They behave very much like a cult. The Democrats are internally dissonant, and they care very much about what people outside the party think of them because they are trying so hard to please everyone.

Consequently, the basic problem is that the Republican Party is a community, but the Democratic Party is not. The Republican Party acts swiftly and coherently, the Democratic Party does not.

The reason for the success of Republicans is because they behave like a community. It has nothing to do with the value of their ideas. The Democrats need to reconnect with each other to rebuild their own community. The first step is to recognize the value of community.

Recognizing the value of community is easier for Republicans than it is for Democrats, for two reasons. First, the Republicans call their community "church" , "party", and "country". Protestant denominations have grown because they provide a sense of community. Party activism has flourished because it provides a sense of community. Patriotism is rampant because it provides a sense of community. The ideas that bind the community may be false and destructive, but the forms of the community help the Republican Party.
Here then, is a cardinal rule of what it means to be a New Age Democrat: ideas and principles are irrelevant unless you can implement them. Community is the only way to implement ideas.

The Democratic Party has had difficulty recognizing the value of community because it has focused simultaneously on the national and the intensely private, without focusing on everything in between: communities. Ever since President Kennedy, President Johnson, and the Civil Rights movement, as well as numerous other liberation movements, the Democrats have accepted to contradictory ideas. The first is that we are each on our own individual path, and therefore we should not interfere with the personal journey of another person. Simultaneously, we look to the democratic leadership to combine our efforts so that we can succeed in national politics. The problem is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to look inward and outward simultaneously.

Democrats cannot expect help from the top when they reject help from their peers. We cannot believe in a single, coherent path for the nation when we believe in separate paths for each other. The base and the leadership must be in alignment, in the same way that the head and the heart must be in alignment.
The most important point is that the United States, as a society, is crying out for more community while it simultaneously separates itself into different spheres. The Republicans know this, and so they refuse to separate. The Democrats do not know this, so they accept this contradiction.

The Democratic and liberal values of helping each other, recognizing our common humanity, and using government for that purpose, have all been adopted by the Republicans. Except, they call it security. They argue that the human race is a family, and that the U.S. must go to other countries and help oppressed peoples, such as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and elsewhere. Yet, the Democrats then argue that we are not a global community, and that we cannot impose out values on other countries through force.
This is simply a reply of the domestic argument. Republicans want community, and so they create it, virtually out of nothing, especially with the growth of ex-urban areas. The Republicans have thus gotten very good at creating something out of nothing as a justification for maintaining their community. The Democrats call this lying, acting like sheep, etc. However, all the Republicans are doing is realizing that people need to communicate with each other. That's why they have used talk radio and cable television to fill the void that is left from the disappearance of physical community. The Democrats only see the forest for the trees: they think that talk radio and cable television are hateful, angry, and filled with misinformed people, but the do not recognize that conservatives have found a good way to use information technology to create their own sense of community. We need not accept their ideas, but we can copy their methods of spreading their ideas.

That is the ultimate lesson that the Democrats must learn. Liberal and Democratic arguments have been accepted by everyone, including the Republicans, but the Democrats do not act on those arguments while the Republicans do. I would rather be in a party that acts upon its ideas in the local level first, than wait for the idea to come from the national level.

Combatting Conservative arguments

So far I have mainly written about what it means to be a New Age Democrat: accept that we are living in a new age that demands high reasoning capabilities to deal with information overload, and use our information, with the help of government as a central information processor, to promote the growth of communities at the local level.

I have also written about the many negative attributes of Religious Conservatives and Republicans.
Now, I must write about how to combat their ideas. The one thing Conservatives pride themselves on is being intelligent, and using arguments to combat liberals as "bleeding hearts". Liberals think of conservatives as unintelligent, but many times conservatives develop what seem to be good ideas. Here are two: (1) the virtue of private everything with an intense focus on individualism and self reliance, and (2) the existence of God as a way to establish moral bearings for an individual and society.

Privacy and individuality are the antithesis of community. Indeed, conservatives come down hard on the side of the individual in the philosophical debate of the individual vs. the community. Usually, conservatives argue that we are all individuals, we are all inherently competitive and at war with one another, and a community stifles that competition. These are the libertarians, and they want nothing less than to be left alone - by the government, by family, by friends, etc.

The best argument against privacy is that privacy as an actual fact no longer really exists. This is the first step in recognizing the existence of a New Age characterized by information overload. It is now possible to acquire information on any person. At the minimum, it is possible to found out a person's address and phone number, and probably the past 5 years of their life without ever meeting them. If your computer skills are good enough, you can find out much more. That's the positive argument against privacy. Before the New Age of information overload, privacy was a viable concept because it described fundamental features of society. Individuals could easily go incognito. Records were not well kept before the late 20th century, and the records that were kept were not easily accessible by the public. They were accessible by defense and police agencies, or corporations, but ordinary people had to rely on word-of-mouth to get information about each other. Hence, most people before the late-20th century lived in small towns around the world. There were urban centers of course, but most people grew up in small towns where everyone knew everyone else. This created the "rumor mill", and it was often difficult to escape the impact of those rumors. Now, we use the Internet and cell phones to get information on strangers. This increase in information has compensated for a decrease in community over the past 30 years so that we can no longer rely on continuous contact with a small group of people, except in an office, but we can keep track of people by using Google.

Thus, while we can still conceive of ourselves as individuals, we are increasingly empowered to act collectively. This has already started to happen. "Flash Mobs" were a type of faddish performance art in 2003. high school and college students use cell phone text messaging to communicate and coordinate activities as if they were in a bee hive. This has created a stronger sense of community online to replace the physical community that we lost over the past 30 years. The online community is now trying to restore the physical community through such web sites as Meetup.com.

The conservative argument for the existence of God is trickier to deal with because it ducks the important question that motivates the argument. The argument for individual self-reliance is motivated by the question: how shall we assign responsibility for our actions, and how shall we help those who have failed in their endeavors? The first part of the question is ethical since it tries to steer us away from irresponsible actions. The second part of the question is practical because it tries to steer us toware personal success and away from failure. Thus, the question of the existence of God is really a question about the quality of information that is available to us, and the ability to process that information correctly to make good decisions once we acquire the information. The premise is that, if God exists, we will have a continuous source of high quality decisions from a being who is able to process an infinite amount of information. Hence, we must accept that we have very limited abilities to process information, and that our decision-making abilities are limited as well. We are fallible, meaning we make bad decisions on limited information. God, as an all-knowing, all-powerful, benevolent being, has the ability to provide us with the best decisions if we simply listen.

The problem with this argument is that it assumes a great deal about the nature of God. It is not necessary to make any of these assumptions. Even if such a being as God does exist, that God does not need to be all-powerful, all-knowing, or even benevolent. Indeed, much of what we think of as God is a simple projection of what we want God to be. We implicitly recognize that we live in a New Age of information overload, so we think there must be some Higher Power who is able to process all of this information for us. We feel that without such a Being, we will consistently make bad decisions on limited information.

The New Age response the argument for the existence of God is that we don't really need this type of a God to make our decisions. We simply need each other. A single person probably cannot process all the information that exists in the world, but that is why we have communities. All communities have economies in which people find areas in life in which they are good at processing certain types of information and then helping other people to make decisions with that information. A good parallel argument is the difference between supercomputers and distributed computers. Scientists and researchers once relied solely on supercomputers to analyze weather patterns, stock markets, infectious disease patterns, and many other complex phenomena. The supercomputers were needed because individual personal computers were not powerful enough in processing speed, and did not contain enough storage capacity, to analyze these complex problems. Times have changed. Based on Moore's Law, the processing power of a single personal computer today surpasses the processing power of supercomputers from 50 years ago. It used to be that personal computers were very personal: they could not share data easily or coordinate activity through communication. Now they can do both with the Internet. Consequently, instead of buying costly supercomputers with enormous processing power, many universities and researchers are using distributed computing. They let users download programs for processing data, and when the computers are idle they process little chunks of data and send the data back to a central unit. The rankings of supercomputers worldwide now include distributed computing networks. The networked computers collaborate on problems simultaneously and match, or surpass, the performance of supercomputers.

The same is true for individuals. Individually, we do not possess all the information or analytical ability to process every conceivable problem that we may face. Collectively, as a community, we share problems and develop solutions very quickly because we are able to distribute the reasoning ability. In other words, humanity is God. However, in order to act like God, we need to recognize that we have the abilities only if we organize our efforts collectively. The Conservative bases his economic argument on the notion of the "invisible hand", but the visible hand can be just as, if not more effective if we know how to recognize it.

Thus, community can be used as a complete and powerful counter-argument to both conservative arguments about self-reliance and the existence of God. It is time to start rebuilding those communities.

The Orwell Era

Almost any political scientist or English professor will tell you how to recognize the work of George Orwell, especially the classic tales "1984" and "Animal Farm", among others. In Orwell's universe, lies are told deliberately to people by the government, except the lies are known as "Newspeak". Anything painful and torturous is good because pain builds character and torture helps one to love the person who is doing the torturing. Finally, the people in power are indistinguishable from the people out of power because they use the same tactics: they rule with an iron fist once they acquire power.

I am a former journalist, yet I have not read any news since Jan. 20, 2005. I used to subscribe to Time Magazine and the New York Times. I no longer do so. Yet, I also teach political science. How can I teach students about politics if I do not know what is going on around me? It's simple: almost everything that is being reported as news, especially if it involves politics, is based on lies, and these lies are repeated over and over again by the media, which is largely owned by corporations who donate heavily to Republican candidates.

What are the lies? Here are a few.

1. The Democrats have a problem with morality, and the Republicans are benefiting from that problem.

This is a lie because this story is based on the exit polls from Nov. 2, 2004, that were revised to match the official result from electronic voting machines that did not match the earlier exit polls. The earlier exit polls were accurate, the revised polls are inaccurate because they were reformulated to match electronic voting results that had also been tinkered with. The true exit polls were taken until 7 pm. After that, all of the polling formulas were revised to match the "official" result. The American people voted against Bush and the Republicans because they perceived the Orwellian behavior of Bush and the Republicans over the previous four years. Thus, the problem isn't with the Democrats not understanding morality; the problem is with the Republicans taking morality too seriously. This has produced absurd news, such as Time Magazine's report on the top 25 Evangelicals. Evangelicals were not a significant part of the electorate in 2004, and yet they are being treated as the vanguard of American society. That is a lie.

2. Social Security is in trouble.

This is a lie because the administrators of the Social Security program have repeatedly said that social security is not in trouble, that it is viable for another half century.

3. There is a war on terrorism.

This is a lie because it is impossible to have a war on terrorism. Terrorism is very much like crime, and crime does not end, whereas all wars end. Now, we can think of terrorism as a chronic condition, exacerbated by extreme circumstances. Thus, a war on terrorism would fit right in with the war on drugs, the war on crime, and the war on poverty. Yet, the U.S. is committing thousands of troops abroad to actually fight a war of our own creation, not a metaphorical war.

These are just the three most prominent lies. The problem is that no one is pointing them out as lies, largely because the Orwell Effect has taken over the Republican and Democratic Parties. The Republican Party tells lies and acts in criminal ways, while the Democratic Party believes those lies and lets the Republican Party act in criminal ways. However, let's clarify. The Democratic Base does not believe the lies of the Republican Base and Leadership, but the Democratic Leadership does believe those lies.

So, the mainstream news is almost entirely based on either half or full lies, with the Republicans telling them and the Democratic leadership accepting them. The only place to get authentic news, unfortunately, is on the web, and especially from weblogs, like mine. That is why many mainstream news organizations have started to cover the information provided in web logs, since the web loggers are today's true journalists. The mainstream media have shifted into the industry of packaging the news instead of reporting and verifying the accuracy of the news.

When the mainstream news organizations start producing verifiable facts, I will pay attention once again.