Thank God for the Internets

[Tom Rinaldo]

There always were people who saw through the corporate haze spin that justified status quo priorities that advance the interests of the already privileged, but we couldn't compare notes with each other instantly before. There always was small circulation print media willing to publish articles that shredded arguments used to justify why justice was impractical when it wasn't deemed counter productive, but we couldn't share them with thousands with the click of a mouse like we do now. The establishment still distorts to our face but now we have facts at our fingertips. Leaders still are tempted to compromise our interests with those whose power buys them influence, but their justifications no longer stand unchallenged in the public sphere. We are able to effectively take them on, thanks to the Internets.

That shift has rarely been so clear to me as it is now, when a popular President just enthusiastically reelected has a proposal with broad "establishment" support, like the Chained CPI, so powerfully rebutted by those he believed would bow to the new "inevitable" conventional thinking.

[MrYikes]

1. well said.

to advance then is to funnel the ideas generated by all the internet sites down to a few addresses so that all people can see what is really going on. DU is one such site. Are there others?

[Tom Rinaldo]

2. Yes, different people use different ones

I mostly come here because there is such a wide open exchange going on at DU with so much active participation. I like that it is easy to see what is being added to the debate when with simple screen checks. But I also use Daily Kos, and often I follow links from here to other web sites with some regularity, so there are other good ones. I'll mention one mainstream news site that surprises me sometimes with the useful reporting they sometimes do; Bloomberg News, go figure. I've never been a fan of Huffington Post but I know that others are. Places like Mother Jones often break ground and news, but we are talking about places one can go to for a wide overview; information switchboards.