Search, read and crank hard

Outrages against the public weal flow out of the Bush Administration and rightist-controlled Congress at such a pace that it is impossible to keep up – not that most Americans are trying, or even aware of what’s happening.

That’s not entirely the public’s fault.

Our general news media are falling down on the job as never before. One has to know how to look and where to look to get a fairly good overview of right wing’s massive attack on our democracy and the “lower classes.” And, of course, we have been taught almost from birth that someone who complains all the time must be, certainly is, some sort of nut case. If almost daily you raise a cry against some action of Nominal President Bush and the White House crowd, you are assumed to be a nutter. People won’t look at the facts you decry, merely the fact that you complain so often.

I’m certain now that is not an accident. The rightists in the White House -- superb strategists, whatever else they also may be -- throw out two, three, a dozen “initiatives” a day, knowing that most of them will slip by unobserved by a fumbling press and citizens largely immersed in their own immediate concerns and bamboozled by a phony war and constant proddings to fear. Those who complain loud and often will be widely dismissed.

Those of us who care deeply about what’s being done have to find the sources of accurate and complete information. They are around, but they aren’t delivered to your door step every morning, and certainly aren’t to be found by touching a button on a remote control.

We also have to keep yelling, even at the risk of being labeled cranks. Keep writing letters to the editor, keep writing and telephoning members of Congress and state legislators and governors and the operators of broadcast stations and heads of corporations. Do not let them rest easy. There is at least the chance that some of what you say, supported by facts, will get through to others.

In the interests of keeping informed:

I wish everyone in the country belonged to an outfit called the Public Concern Foundation for no other reason than to receive it’s four-page, 8 ½ by 11-inch newsletter, The Washington Spectator, published 22 times a year. Membership, which brings you the Spectator, is $15 a year, $12 for seniors and students. I only recently began receiving the publication – the subscription was a Christmas gift – but I am impressed. It is remindful of the days of I.F. Stone. The current issue is devoted largely to a strongly documented report on how the Bush family and friends are profiting mightily from the presidency. Profiting in real and very big dollars and operating, as many of us suspected, the most corrupt administration in American history.

You can join/subscribe by sending a check or money order with your name and address to The Public Concern Foundation, P.O. Box 20065, New York, NY 10011. Further subscription information is available by emailing subscriptions@washingtonspectator.com...or you can order a subscription through Amazon.com