Aired 21 January 2020 – 5:00 PM EDT
Interview with Journalist, Author and Media Critic Norman Solomon
“We have two political parties in this country – the Democratic Party and the un-democratic party.” — Swami Beyondananda
If they saw what the Republican Party has devolved to, Republican icons like Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and even Barry Goldwater would flip in their crypts. The blatant heartlessness, self-centered short-sightedness, and downright insanity of a political party that has become a toxic cult, would certainly make the Democrats seem like a sane and viable alternative, right?
Well, here’s the elephant – and donkey – in the living room. In a political system where it costs the average Senator $14,000 to finance their re-election campaign, the oligarchs have a well-established foothold in that party too.
Our guest on Wiki Politiki this week, journalist, activist and author Norman Solomon has been involved with progressive politics for decades, working to move the Democratic Party beyond the “identity issues” that they have used to cobble coalitions, to addressing the “identical issues” we all face – like a clean environment and economic justice.
Norman Solomon is an American journalist, media critic, author and activist. His dozen books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” A full-length documentary film, narrated by Sean Penn, was based on “War Made Easy.” The New York Times review called the film “ultimately persuasive” and said: “Many of its arguments have been made before … but Mr. Solomon digs deeper and hammers harder.”
Solomon is the founder of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a consortium of policy researchers and analysts. He is IPA’s executive director and the coordinator of its ExposeFacts program.
He is co-founder and national coordinator of the online organization RootsAction.org, which now has 1.5 million active supporters. In 2016, Solomon was elected as a Bernie Sanders delegate to the Democratic National Convention, where he was the coordinator of the independent Bernie Delegates Network. In 2012, running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from California’s 2nd Congressional District, he came within 0.1 percent of getting through the primary.
Solomon wrote the nationally syndicated “Media Beat” weekly column from 1992 to 2009. He is a longtime associate of the media watch group FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting).
Solomon has appeared as a guest on many media outlets including the “PBS News Hour,” CNN, MSNBC, Fox News Channel, “Democracy Now,” C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” public radio’s “Marketplace,” and NPR’s “All Things Considered.” His op-ed articles have appeared in a range of newspapers including the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, New York Times, Boston Globe, Miami Herald, USA Today, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun and The Hill. His articles have also appeared in the International Herald Tribune, Canada’s Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star.
Solomon’s books include “Made Love, Got War,” “Target Iraq,” “Wizards of Media Oz: Behind the Curtain of Mainstream News,” “The Trouble With Dilbert: How Corporate Culture Gets the Last Laugh,” “False Hope: The Politics of Illusion in the Clinton Era,” “The Power of Babble: The Politician’s Dictionary of Buzzwords and Doubletalk for Every Occasion,” and “Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience With Atomic Radiation.”
If you’re interested in learning how we can put the “democratic” in Democratic Party, and not just take America back, but take her forward, please tune in.
To find out more about Norman Solomon, please go here.