Welcome to The Watch

Happy New Year! I hope 2003 is happy and healthy for you. Welcome to The Watch, a periodic newsletter I am going to try to publish to keep my progressive-minded friends updated on what is happening in the world. This is a response to just feeling crummy about the way events are evolving and feeling powerless to do anything about it. Consider it mostly therapy for me, but if it brings value to you at all, I'm very happy for that as well.

Responses are welcome, and please let me know if someone you know would like to be (or should be) added to the Watchlist. Also, if you would like to be removed from the list, or if there is a better email for me to use. (Or, if you'd like to be BCC'd or something else).

There is a huge social pressure driving us towards feudalism in this country, a return to a dark age where power is concentrated in a very few hands and the power of individuals is almost nonexistent. The first premise of The Watch is that this is a bad trend, and that power to individuals is a good thing.

Most of what is going on in this country today can be viewed through this lens - try it! It's a fun game. For example, an increase of corporate power is concentration of power, and removal of power from individuals. So, if corporations can't be sued, that is a gain in power for corporations, loss of power for individuals. Therefore, most "tort reform" is bad, in as much as it tries to rob individuals of power. Regressive taxes are bad, in that they rob from the poor to give to the rich. Loss of our individual freedoms is a bad thing, though why this has to be said is an amazing development.

The second premise of The Watch is that this pressure is coming from a more and more coordinated effort from various groups, most prominently in the Republican Party and the conservative news media, but also from social conservatives, etc.

The third premise of the Watch is that hypocrisy is the lowest form of evil, and there is an awful lot of hypocrisy being shoveled around our national discourse.

The fourth premise of The Watch is that there is hope if progressive people work together to help create decision making processes which empower people and help us all to make choices which help all members of our society.

On to today's featured articles and websites!!

Media Watch

One of the most amazing transformations in the last 30 years (I think of Watergate as the last great triumph of populism vs. oligarchy in the press) is one where we now have a media system owned by, operated by, and wholly designed to benefit large corporations, which definitely benefit from oligarchy (and plutocracy). As such, they have become cheerleaders for all things which benefit the already rich and powerful in this country. The pundits, anchors, editorialists, commentators, and other mandarins of our age who happily take big corporate money in return for propagandizing and tricking people into voting against their best interests are betrayers of the public trust of the worst kind. THE MOST IMPORTANT WEBSITE on the web today is Media Whores Online.

MWO has a centrist-democratic position and watches carefully for the abuses of public trust in the media. Please visit, bookmark, and return frequently.

Korea Watch

Governor Bush has done a terrible job getting us into a boatload of trouble with North Korea. Please see the following articles on this horrible foreign policy fiasco:

* "Games Nations Play" (Please do register at NYTimes - if only to read the editorials of this very brave and very honest columnist)
* "Speaking loudly without any stick"
* "Robert Fisk: The double standards, dubious morality and duplicity of this fight against terror"
* Recent entries on Korea at Talking Points Memo
* "Morality is not a Strategy"

Enron Watch

An interesting slide show.

Virtues Watch

The Fattest Right-Wing Moralizer Award is announced.

Election Watch

An excellent analysis of how the democrats should not let themselves be railroaded by the media.