We’re very busy this morning discussing people’s initiatives to correct the almost catastrophic condition that exists in our political system (and our society in general) these days.

Fixer of Alternate Brain has posed some interesting questions and answers in a series of posts that deserve more attention than I paid them in a post of mine earlier today.

As always, anything the Fixer writes can stand a good read and some serious thought in a quiet room. It’ll do you some good.

Our good friend Jeff Huber posted a comment to my response to Fixer, opening the door for the introduction of the ‘voter’s triad.’ I like the term ‘triad’ in this case; reminds me of the old Cold War military triad of ICBMs, bombers, and Navy missile submarines. Both can end a war. The difference is that the voter’s triad is designed to end the political war of politician oppression, dishonesty and incompetence without leaving a radioactive wasteland in its path.

With the sort of happy coincidence that usually occurs only in fiction, we find Georgia 10 has put up a diary entry at Daily Kos that fits in quite well with this thread here. From discussing the Republican base, she moves onto our hapless, bought-and-paid-for corporate media’s attempt to discern what’s happening in the new Democratic base – the netroots.

For years, the press has focused with laser-like precision on the Republican base. After the 2004 election, the media's focus on the Republican base reached a nauseating fever pitch as we were subjected to fawning coverage of the "political" power of Evangelical Christians; we saw networks hire "faith and values" correspondents," and we saw them hire commentators straight out of the conservative movement. Liberal voters? They were barely mentioned, let alone mentioned as a cohesive and influential body within the party itself.

But something has happened lately. For various reasons, the media have ceased lovingly gazing into the navel of the Republican Party. They have lifted up their heads, tilted them slightly to the left, only to see a massive sea of people that previously existed only in their blind spot.

Yes, the Democratic Party does have a base.

And boy, judging from the reaction from some quarters of the press, it was like they stumbled upon a New World filled with an undiscovered indigenous people. Who are these members of the "netroots"? How do they interact? What are their goals? Who is their leader? Do they light bonfires and eat their young?

Since Republicans, and their vassals, the corporate media, are classically victims of groupthink, they feel it’s necessary to place this netroots thing into a standard mold. In their way of thinking, this will require defining things as they view them: lots of cocktail parties, bobble head gossiping, and (as always) plain brown envelopes furtively delivered in corners of rooms and behind closed doors.

We saw it as the media descended upon YearlyKos, armed with cameras and notepads ready to "observe" this strange phenomenon, this corporeal gathering of the newly discovered Democratic base, as if they were filming a Discovery Channel documentary. For quite a while, their coverage of us focused not so much on us as much as on our reaction to things--such as our reaction to Colbert's speech.

We have always been here, of course. The only difference is that the internet has allowed us to meet in a 21st century public square of sorts. And yeah, like people do when they get together for change, we (gasp!) organize and we (holy shit!) debate strategy. We argue. We support each other. We raise money. We spend money. We make miracles happen, and we make mistakes. And, unlike the Republican base, we do this all publicly. Our debate is online, naked and raw. Millions attend our town hall meetings, and each participant speaks out in her own unique (and yeah, usually anonymous) voice.

I suppose it's only natural that when presented with something so unconventional, the media have tried to understand it in conventional terms. The fundamental flaw in the media's discovery of the Democratic base though is that they presume that the same traits they have observed in the Republican base apply equally to us as well. Thus, we have seen the effort to shove our movement into the jello-mold form of the Republican grassroots movement that has dominated politics thus far.

Mmmmm… lemming herds. I like that term. Better than groupthink, don’tcha agree? Go read all of it. Give it the "Fixer" treatment in a quiet room.