Blog of the week: The Fighting Democrat


Starting this week, I will try to highlight various resources on the Internet that I find useful and worthwhile. The Fighting Democrat is certainly one worth visiting.

The major media in the United States has been likened to a vast, right-wing echo chamber. Bush or one of his officers says something, and an army of obedient reporters note his every word, and repeat it for mass consumption in our newspapers, radio, and television. There is often very little fact-checking, very little questioning. The most egregious example of this was the press conference before the war last March, when White House reporters were scripted in their order of questions and chided when they raised a hand out of turn.

The Left, on the other hand, appears to have to content itself with being the neglected stepchild in the news business. Were it not for the internet and the many blogs it has spawned, there would be very little alternative analysis of current events. One of the earliest that I came across was The Fighting Democrat, http://www.fightingdemocrat.com . Originally a site that posted full-length articles, in the past year it has been re-cast as a weblog, with short summaries and links to the original articles. The Fighting Democrat has a wide range of political interests, and s/he keeps up with a number of publications. Brought together into one place, they form a powerful counter-argument and cultural memory of How We Got Into This Mess. Each article is prefaced by a comment, which is often amusing.

Recent posts include Robert Kuttner's America As A One Party State , which is a quite dispassionate and rational analysis of our presumed two-party system. It's for articles like this that I read the Fighting Democrat; I can't read the entire net, but a weblog like this helps bring the seminal articles to one place.

Posted: Thu - February 12, 2004 at 01:04 PM        

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