There is no more important struggle for American democracy than ensuring a diverse, independent and free media. Free Press is at the heart of that struggle.
They're counting on your patriotism to distract you from their plunder. They're counting on you to be standing at attention with your hand over your heart, pledging allegiance to the flag, while they pick your pocket!
Although our interests as citizens vary, each one is an artery to the heart that pumps life through the body politic, and each is important to the health of democracy.
What we need is what the ancient Israelites called hochma - the science of the heart...the capacity to see, to feel, and then to act as if the future depended on you. Believe me, it does.
President Bush, whose scorn for journalists is balanced by a soft spot in his heart for the conglomerates they work for, threatens to veto the Senate action. Keep in mind that when the public was asked to submit comments to the FCC about consolidation, only one percent approved it. The President may not be listening, but the Senate is, and the public won this round. The House has a similar resolution under consideration.
When we were covering the 2008 campaign I told my young African American colleagues that despite the historical significance of victory, Barack Obama was going to break their hearts. They didn't want to hear that, and they refused to believe it. Eighteen months later they started dropping by one by one to say, sadly: "He broke our hearts." A couple of them even wept.
