I Feel Ill... An Open Letter to the MSM Alaska Press Corpse

No picture. Just a rant.

I do feel ill. And ill-served. The more I look into Sen. Ted Stevens' role in deregulating the energy speculation market, the more I have to ask myself, "Why don't good reporters like Richard Mauer and Robert Dillon and Kyle Hopkins get this? Why does it continue to have to be that, as this election cycle starts to get serious, so many good reporters miss real stories?"

Robert Dillon, a very knowledgeable reporter, covered Stevens' full-frontal assault on the truth this week, by telling readers it was a sign that Stevens is ready to hit back at Begich, and hit hard. No, Robert, it is a sign that only when he has to, as a last resort, do something - his bullshit "energy blueprint" plan is in competition with 18 other bills dealing with this - he'll do as little as possible and make the most out of it he can. Trusting, all the time, that you'll help him tell his fucking lie his way.

Any mention of those 18 other bills, Robert, Richard, Kyle, ERIKA? I haven't found it. Do you even know they exist? Most of the others are far, far better than Stevens' minimalist approach, which - I'm sure - will end up in the wastebasket it deserves.

What Senators Gramm and Stevens did with this December 2000 Legislation, Robert, Richard, Kyle, Sean, Erika and other clueless ones out there, is rob the American people over the time since then of enough money to build a nation.

Stevens' role in the story you refuse to cover is depopulating villages, causing economic hardship, domestic violence and suicides! It is reducing our fishing fleets to being tied at the dock. Thanks to your enabling of this robbery, these fishers might just as well turn their boats into aquaculture projects, harvesting kelp, mussels and algae from the decaying bottoms of their their immobile hulks.

In Alaska, these high energy costs are, among other things, exacerbating the already problematic real estate market. Our real estate bubble - helped by other legislation Stevens had a hand in - isn't as big as some, but money is tight. Very tight.

And now, again, thanks to the guy you're covering for here, people can't afford to live in Palmer and Wasilla and work in Anchorage. Every single builder of new homes I know out in the Valley, is worried about their near term future.

And, as our national economy continues to rapidly deteriorate, how much research are you doing into which candidates are taking the most money from people who are responsible for this kind of faulty legislation, and into which candidates are taking new money from people who want to keep this insane, unworkable economic paradigm creaking along on its broken wheels until we all crash?

I know, you're all worried about your jobs, and work for editors who are more conservative than you, editors who have to worry about how to attract ads, pay you or fire you. And nobody wants to become unemployed for telling inconvenient truths, like Greg Palast or Phil Weiss.

But if there was ever a time in American history when we needed reporters to report, this is it.

Good Luck, friends! Do your fucking jobs for us.