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| Joe Bakewell. |
HAPPY NEW YEAR.
Lawrence Lessig.
Our media are hard-wired to contribute to our polarization.
Their ratings, and therefore income, depends on their ability to get people to
hate each other. They adopt political propaganda wholesale and spend very
little on investigating the ‘truth’.
Voters divide roughly in thirds; Liberals, Conservatives,
and Independents. Conservatives outnumber Liberals by a small margin, while the
media self-identify as 2/3rds Liberal. One obvious result is that Liberal media
must compete harder with each other than do Conservative media.
Collectively, our media are doing a superlative job at
creating a polarized electorate. Politicians, especially those who are in it
for the money and celebrity status, eagerly join the attack, sowing hatred at
every opportunity.
Now along comes Lawrence Lessig with a well-researched book
‘They Don’t Represent Us’. He slips a bit here and there into
Liberal-speak, but overall, the book is a masterpiece. For anyone, not totally
caught up in the Hate Game, Lessig provides guidance to how we got where we are
and what to do about it. At a minimum, reading this book will make you far
better informed than you are now. It may even help those of us who are already
hard-over in their opinions (having conscientiously watched many hours of TV)
to defend themselves.
Lessig is well credentialed to take on this problem.
He’s a Democrat, a life-long Progressive, a Harvard professor, a family man,
and a hell of a nice guy.
The last part of his book (about seventy pages) felt like a
cross between a stream of consciousness and a media analysis for investors
suitable for the Wall Street Journal, or Barron’s. As always, you’ll have your
own take.
For anyone seriously interested in reclaiming our democracy
this book is a must.
Joe Bakewell
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