Before logging on to DU this morning, I flip on the TV for a few minutes, and start to be lulled into soft thinking about Gerald Ford. Awww, of all the Republican presidents in recent history, he was the best, I am thinking. At least he was reasonable. Yes, he pardoned Nixon, but at least he also pardoned the draft dodgers. He was, the FOX news caster says regretfully, "his own man". CNN touts its upcoming special about Ford via Larry King.

Aha! It's 7:15 AM! I can flip to Public Access TV and at this hour it won't be filled with wanna-be-televangelists from tiny churches trying to become the next Joel Osteen or Ted Haggard. Nope, at the blessed hour of 7 AM it's got the visual version of Amy Goodman & DemocracyNow! There she is, immediately reminding me of East Timor. Uggh. So a third of the East Timorese were slaughtered with the consent of Gerald Ford and those bloody monsters Kissinger and Brzezinski? Yes, and Ms. Goodman was there. The ugly facts served up with no sugar. Why do I prefer this caustic medicine over the sugary fantasies served up by the 'News' channels?

Why indeed.

What is it that DN! and DU (!) keep bringing me back to, aside from a sometimes-bitter truth? They bring me back to MY goals: Peace. Justice. Human Rights. Democracy.

They help me recognize which players and activities in the world are supporting those goals, and which are working against it. Any time the 'News Channels' are giving a lovely sugar-coated eulogy, DN! and DU (!) remind us, don't be lulled into thinking that These were one of The Good Guys.

The flip side is that when the 'News Channels' barely mention the death of someone like Rosa Parks, DN! and DU (!) will be there fleshing out the picture to bring it to life, or devoting an hour to a man or woman who most definitely WAS one of The Good Guys. Sometimes the lives of people I'd never heard of, like Victoria Gray Adams or Andrea Dworkin or James Forman, are expounded, and in hearing of their acts, my sense of "the possible" is expanded.

I am too weak and too easily distracted, but I do know that these are MY goals and MY values: Peace. Justice. Human Rights. Democracy.

Thank you to the truthtellers, like the cast of DemocracyNow! and the 'cast of thousands' on DU, for helping me keep my eye on the ball.