Looking Back

I started this newsletter at the end of 2004. Originally it was merely sent out by email as an attached word document. The first issue went out to about a dozen people. It fact it was pretty primitive! It was my goal to reach 100 readers within a
month. Now I have been getting more than 200 readers per day. I am
still only reaching a small group, but that group includes elected
politicians, candidates, activists, community organizers and leaders of
all sorts.

Here is my statement of purpose from my very first newsletter:

Election 2004 is over and either we lost it or it was stolen. So much enthusiasm and effort went into it and now that enthusiasm is turning to frustration and anger. My goal here is to channel that frustration and anger back into action. There is no reason why we can’t keep the organization we built over the last few years and use it to retake our country. In a sense I am trying to learn from our opponents. When Goldwater lost in 1964, the right wing of America was panicked. They were terrified that the left was taking over the nation. But they didn’t give up the way the left often does when faced with defeat. They did not question their message like we do. They channeled their efforts, focusing on building their network, focusing on local elections. Out of this grew, gradually and slowly, the entire right wing machine we are now faced with. The take over of the media began during the Nixon presidency, but wasn’t really accomplished until the late Clinton administration. Such patience, to push without really changing message much, despite repeated setbacks, for 30 years is something the left has not been capable of. It is time we start. That is the inspiration for what I am doing. It is up to us to keep organized, keep active and to recruit.

I believe that the strategy I outlined in that statement of purpose is exactly what we did in the last 4 years which won us a great victory in 2008.

One of the first things I highlighted in my
newsletter was election reform. So far this has been slow. Our
elections remain flawed and we still have right wing owned companies
dominating the production ofevote machines. But progress has been made.

In my first newsletters I highlighted FairVote.org. From their website:

FairVote acts to transform our elections to achieve universal access to participation, a full spectrum of meaningful ballot choices and majority rule with fair representation for all. As a catalyst for change, we build support for innovative strategies to win a constitutionally protected right to vote, universal voter registration, a national popular vote for president, instant runoff voting and
proportional representation.

As a reform catalyst, FairVote develops and promotes practical strategies to improve elections at the local, state and national levels. Our vision of an equally secure, meaningful and effective vote for all Americans is founded on the principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech: we are created equal, government is of, by and for the people and it is time to make real the promise of democracy.

Operating for many years as the Center for Voting and Democracy, FairVote was founded in 1992. It has a large volunteer network across the nation, with closely allied groups in states like California, Minnesota, North Carolina and Rhode Island.

I also recommended this:

But what is MOST important, is writing every elected politician and telling them you want election reform. Feel free to use my arguments above or use information from fairvote.org. Or use your own feelings and words.

Write Congress: use www.Congress.org to find your House and Senate representatives as well as your local officials. Write your representative, write your Senators, write your state senator and assembly rep, write the mayor and city council rep. Write them all! Channel your feelings about this election into these letters. BE PASSIONATE! Be clear. Be yourself. Make it clear to your elected officials that you do not feel that America is a Democracy anymore and that the election system needs to be reformed.

I also focused on media reform. Again, much of this remains to be done. This is from my second newsletter, with a few changes to update it:

What are we up against? Here is my assessment. FoxNews, which dominates the news media due to its popularity [2008 update...no longer! their stock is getting hammered as their viewership declines], is an intentionally ideological propaganda machine for the right wing. Don’t believe me? See Outfoxed (go to http://www.outfoxed.org/ ). FoxNews covers a big chunk of the market and those who watch FoxNews as their main news source have been shown to be more ignorant of what is going on than people who get their news from other sources. Essentially, people who get their news primarily from Fox believe the Republican party line rather than the facts (go to http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Iraq/Media_10_02_03_Report.pdf to see this study).

More ideological than Fox is Sinclair Broadcasting. Fox is willing to compromise their ideology from time to time if to do so will help their profits. Sinclair will sacrifice their profits for their ideology. Sinclair is not a network. They are a corporation that owns local stations that include channels from all networks. In some cases, Sinclair controls the programming of those local stations. In other cases the local station is largely independent but can still be pressured by Sinclair.

Together, taking into account overlap between Fox and Sinclair, these two ideological propaganda machines control about half of the media, maybe slightly less.
The rest of the media is controlled by companies that are not obviously ideological. But they are lazy and interested primarily in profits. Despite having no specific agenda, CNN, and MSNBC in particular, but even ABC and CBS feel they have to follow the lead of FoxNews because a.) they don’t want to be accused of a liberal bias, and b.) they want to follow the successful model of Fox. [2008 UPDATE: MSNBC, one of the first to embrace the Fox News right wing model is also one of the first to dump it. MSNBC, particularly with the addition of Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann to their lineup, have far better and more acurate coverage than they did even just a year ago.] This means that at worst they simply repeat what FoxNews or Bush says without question. At best they present the Fox/Bush side equally with the other side even if one is a lie and the other isn’t (e.g. the Swift Boat Liar campaign). Someone, I forget who, said “If Bush said the earth is flat and the Democrats said it was round, the media would report ‘Democrats disagree with President on the shape of the earth.’” Truth doesn’t matter.

I have two things I want to include in this week’s Media actions. First, get informed. Go to www.outfoxed.org, look over the PIPA report (http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Iraq/Media_10_02_03_Report.pdf ), and start finding your alternative media for your own use. Here are some suggestions:

www.salon.com (subscribe if you don’t want their ads)

www.airamericaradio.com (go to their website to find your local station)

www.mediamatters.org (keep up on FoxNews lies and find out how to counter them)

http://www.tompaine.com/ (alternative media with Action alerts included)

www.dailykos.com (now well known, though not so well known when I first plugged it in 2004)

2008 additions:

Current TV (founded by Al Gore; check the website for the station in your area or for video online of their stuff)

Op Ed News (a reader introduced me to this)


The second thing I want to urge you to do is a continuation of the election reform issue I covered above. In addition to writing to your elected officials, bombard the media as well. Again, from www.Congress.org you can find a link to writing to local and national media. You can compose a letter to the media based on the same letter you wrote to your elected officials. The media HAS to hear our side. They hear the right wing’s view from Bush. But we are their customers. If they get enough letters telling our side, they do notice. So bombard them with your viewpoint and get your like-minded friends doing the same.

I will end this retrospective with my comments on local action from my first newsletter. Again, still applies!

For this week’s local focus, I am suggesting two things. First, focus on yourself. There are two books I recommend that will help energize you for future activism. First there is a fairly superficial but inspiring book from MoveOn.org called “50 Ways to Lover your Country.” If you want to get active, this book is a good source of ideas to start from. It covers everything from writing letters to the editor to running for office.

Second I recommend Paul Wellstone’s book, “Conscience of a Liberal: Reclaiming the Compassionate Agenda”. For those of you who don’t know about him, Wellstone was a VERY progressive Senator from Minnesota who died in a plane crash in 2002. His book shows how liberals can reclaim swing states while staying true to their progressive/populist agenda.

These two books will remind you why you got politically active in the first place and why you shouldn’t give up now.

My second recommended action is to start getting connected with your local progressive community. Below, under “Upcoming Meetings” I list local meetings or organizations that I urge you to look into and connect with. We each need to get involved with the local party and local clubs. Choose one (or two like my wife and me) and start showing up. Better yet, let’s get some of us together and show up to these meetings. If several of us join together, and recruit a few friends, then our influence on the local groups will be more focused and more effective. So if you want to coordinate, let me know which 2 or 3 groups are most convenient for you and I will try to hook you up with activists in your area.

It has been a long and frustrating 4 years since I started this newsletter. But I think it has been worth it.