Secret truth you always knew

It is finally dawning on the Panglosses on the more centrist left that things are not what they seem. We do, in fact, live in a plutocracy; that the nuevo aristocrats in the media and government, Democrats and Republicans, are all in the same bed and conspiring to keep truth, wealth and power from you and me. It's for the good of the country, they tell themselves, when it is really for their own selfish interests. Hopefully this new realism showing up in posts by some of the super star leftist bloggers signals an awakening and raises some interesting questions. Is it at last a viable time for a third party to emerge? Should we oppose any and all insider candidates, Hillary and Biden, for example, and any other Democratic senators for that matter?

If you've been puzzled by the acquiescence of the Democratic Senators and the media, these two posts, Digby's (linked in the previous post) and The Tiny Revolution's will answer your questions, but not with answers you might wish to receive.

Here's a couple of paragraphs from A Tiny Revolution

...I grew up in the Washington area and went to school with lots of children of government and media types. Then I went to Yale, which is also full of such offspring. What I saw was that the corporate media—places like the New York Times, Washington Post, the networks, etc.—and government figures are blatantly, brazenly in bed with each other. And not just metaphorically; it's often literally true. There's Andrea Mitchell & Alan Greenspan; James Rubin & Christiane Amanpour; Judith Miller & a cast of thousands; and so on.

In any case, whoever they're shtupping, they share a mindset: the government and corporate media self-consciously see themselves as a governing elite that runs things hand in hand. That's why Nicholas Kristof is anxious that if the hoi polloi keep calling George Bush a liar, it may make America "increasingly difficult to govern."

From near the end of The Tiny Revolution's post:

...If you're not part of their little charmed circle, believe me, all your worst suspicions about them are true. They do think you're stupid. They do lie to you. They do hate and fear you. Most importantly, they think you can't be trusted with the things they know—because if you did know them, you'd go nuts and break America. ...

That would be their America. The America many of us live in is already broken.