Spreading The Word: How Can We Better Promote Progressive Ideals?

Reading the diary on the Rec list by DrSteveB over at Dailykos today inspired me to write this rare diary for me.

 

Over the last year or so, I have been giving a lot of thought to the problem that despite the fact that we are the Party of the People, we have a ways to go when it comes to promoting our ideas to the general public. The Republicans, in particular the religious right, have a well-oiled machine in place to help them promote their views and candidates.

 

Our biggest problem is a lack of organization. Another problem, especially for the netroots, is that our influence doesn’t spread much beyond the blogosphere. There are vast swaths of the population who have never heard our ideas. So how do we bring these people around?

 

One thing that seems to hurt us is the fact that most people out there aren’t very well-informed about many of the important issues we wish to promote. So I am proposing that we set up a series of educational campaigns aimed at the wider public. I think I have found a way for us to do it without having to spend a lot of money, or asking people to give up their jobs—but we do need to be willing to coordinate our activities, and donate a small portion of our time to the effort.

 Anatomy of a Public Education Campaign 

My idea consists of setting up, for each month of the year, a campaign on a particular progressive issue, and then getting as many people as possible to work, during that month, on spreading information about it around. For example, January could be the month we promote progressive ideas on wage and labor issues, and September could be health care month. Through the small scale efforts of ordinary people, we could effectively reach thousands of people.

 

The main goal of any public education campaign should be to counter right wing propaganda, spread factual information about the issues, and to effectively reach as many people as possible—especially those who are most likely to benefit from our ideas. You’re going to be a lot more successful promoting wage and labor issues in a working class neighborhood than you will in a rich, gated community.

 

Another thing to consider is the exposure level we subject people to on a local level—the more frequently people see or hear a particular view, the more legitimacy they tend to perceive it to have. Think of the way advertisers promote their brands—because people see ads for Coke products everywhere, they are more likely to say Coke is better soda pop than the cheaper, less widely known store brands, and will pay more for the name brand stuff, even though the store brand may taste exactly the same. So the more intense the campaign, the more successful it is likely to be. Therefore, you might be better off leafleting the same apartment complex three times in month, especially if you are the only person in the area working on a particular issue.

 

Of course, we will all want to write about our “issue of the month” on our own blogs—and get as many other progressive bloggers as possible out there to do the same. We could put little buttons or banners on our blogs promoting the “issue of the month”.

 

An important fact to consider for any grassroots campaign is that not everybody can commit a lot of time and money to the cause. Here’s a few ideas:

 Leafleting

We could do nationwide leafleting campaigns by asking bloggers and other grass roots campaigners to print, and then distribute educational leaflets on stuff like wage issues, health care, campaign finance reform—any number of topics of importance. The participants in the campaign could print off as few, or as many, copies to distribute as they could reasonably afford and have time to pass out. If you could get people across the country involved, we could potentially reach thousands of people every month who never use the Internet.

 E-mail

Related to the idea of leafleting is e-mail. Simply send a few people on your contact list an educational e-mail on some topic of importance to the progressive cause every week or month.

 

LTE’s

Another handy trick in our toolbox could involve having people send LTE’s to their local newspapers. Imagine how much exposure we could get for ideas such as national health care if we could get LTE’s on the subject in question printed in dozens of newspapers across the country. Of course, if you could actually get your local newspaper to write an article on the campaign, then so much the better!

 Yard signs and Bumper Stickers

Simple solutions for people who don’t have a lot of time to contribute—at the very least, you can put the issue in front of a lot of people, even if you don’t provide a lot of information.

 Call-in Radio and TV Shows

Be opportunistic! If a radio or TV show deals with a topic we are promoting, don’t miss the chance to call in and promote our views!

 Contact Local Groups

Another idea is to contact local groups about the campaign—more than likely, they would be happy to help. Coordinating your efforts with a group that is already in place will help to magnify the results. In addition, you should try to recruit individuals who seem friendly to the cause to help spread the word.

 

These are just a few ideas—I’m sure you guys can come up with more (and probably better ones) than I have.

 

We’ll need to figure out how we will decide which issue should get promoted every month (perhaps a vote?) and try to work out the rest of the bugs. So I want to hear all of your ideas—let’s see what we can get going!

 

Some time before the presidential primaries, I’ll share my ideas for getting out the vote, and how we can help remove some of the barriers to voting for low income people, minorities, and the elderly.

 

 Crossposted at Dailykos.

Anti-Gore Propaganda Piece on Wapo

Predictble how, in response to the widespread acclaim Al Gore has received for “An Inconvenient Truth” that the wingnuts would come out in force to attempt to tarnish his gold star by painting a misleading picture of the opinions of scientists.

The article in question attempted to paint the scientific community as being in disagreement with Goreon several points made in his film, rather than stating that the scientific community itself is in disagreement on several points. The author cherry picked responses from scientists who think global warming is not a huge danger to world civillization, some of whom are obviously in the minority who uphold the right wing’s desire to ignore climate change issues. Note that the article did not quote any scientists who agree with the former president on issues such as catastrophic climate change, even though there are a great many scientists who hold that particular view.

What’s really behind this is the Republicans’ fear that Gore might decide to run for president.

The Question of Poverty

Poverty in the United States.

Lately, it has been a hot topic for debate, and rightly so. Over the last several years, more and more Americans have slipped into poverty–the loss of good paying jobs to globalization and the rising costs of health care are probably the two biggest causes of the problem.

Despite the fact that many Americans are struggling, recent actions by Congress and the federal government have actually done little to alleviate the suffering–if anything they are making it worse. An article in the NYT points out that the new federal rules regarding the types of documents that can be used to verify identity when applying for Medicaid–in an attempt to reduce the numbers of illegal immigrants receiving benefits–have actually led to a reduction in the number of citizens who receive benefits.

Is this just more bureaucratic ineptness on the part of the government, or is this a deliberate action designed to make it harder for the poor to receive help–thus reducing Medicaid expenditures?

One thing is for certain–public assistance programs have done nothing to alleviate poverty. The work requirements of TANF have not provided welfare recipients with better lives. Neither have the work requirements and time limits on TANF resulted in any real savings of government dollars on public assistance programs–since most welfare leavers end up working low wage jobs, they end up having to rely on programs like food stamps, medicaid, subsidized housing, and child care subsidies in order to barely scrape by, despite the fact that they work full time.

But if the poor are just as bad–or worse off–than they really were before, who benefits from public assistance programs? It’s not the poor–it’s their employers. Welfare reform provided corporations with a large pool of cheap, easy to exploit labor.

Public assistance programs are not designed to help the poor–they are instead, a means of keeping corporations from paying higher wages by forcing taxpayers to provide wage subsidies to their lowest paid workers. The programs are designed to maximize profits for large employers, such as Wal-mart, while throwing the poor just enough crumbs to prevent them from revolting and demanding better pay and working conditions, while demonizing those who are exploited in order to fatten corporations’ bottom lines.

If we truly wish to reduce poverty in the US, we must ask ourselves why so many people working full time jobs can’t afford to pay their bills and survive on what they earn. It is immoral to pay people who work full time less than it costs to provide a basic standard of living–that’s food, clothing, shelter, transportation, education, and health care.

The answer to the poverty question is to make a living wage the minimum wage. No working American should have to be homeless, go without food, or be without access to basic health care.

How we do it is another question–should we simply raise wages high enough to cover all of an average family’s living costs? Or, should we socialize certain services, such as health care, while guaranteeing that wages keep pace with all other costs? I, for one, don’t think the “how” really matters, except that single payer health care would probably save a lot of money on health care costs. At issue is protecting the human rights of the people, as opposed to catering to the whims of a few rich campaign contributors.

We also need to take control of the immigration issue–by severely penalizing (and jailing) employers who hire illegal immigrants. In addition, attempts to pay certain groups less than others for doing the same job–whether the discrimination is based on gender, race, or immigration status, should be treated as such–and be subject to penalties.

If we want to revitalize our economy, we need to make higher education accessible to everyone–by doing so, we will once again become a world leader when it comes to technological innovation and scientific progress.

And while we’re talking about labor issues, I think we should stop allowing companies who utilize sweatshop labor to import goods into the United States. Not only do we get to take a stand against human rights abuses in other countries, we make it possible for locally based companies to compete with multinational corporations, thus breaking the monopolies they hold on the economy–not to mention the electoral process.

Many people will argue that raising the minimum wage to a living wage will result in a loss of jobs and a downsizing of the economy. What will really happen is that companies will be forced to find innovative ways to compete in this kind of environment–they will have to develop technologies that replace unskilled labor, thus resulting in more technology based jobs.

In addtion, the loss of low wage jobs would not have the negative impact on families that many opponents claim it would. The truth is that many families would actually prefer to have one parent stay home with the kids, at least while they are small. Higher wages would make this possible, and would probably result in a reduction in crime rates, divorce rates, and other familial problems that can be traced back to the stress of having two full time wage earners in a household with small children. This is not to imply that women would be forced to return to being nothing but housewives–it simply means that families would have the ability to make the choice that is best for their own situation. A positive development for many low income women is that fewer of them would be force to stay in abusive relationships because of money concerns (the main reason most domestic violence victims stay with their abusers).

Much of the poverty debate in this country–especially the rhetoric coming from the right, doesn’t really focus on the real issue. It is a shell game, and a propaganda campaign designed to keep people from focusing on the facts of the matter.

Worst. President. Ever.

Has any president in US history ever evoked this kind of reaction?

Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate “bad spirits” after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday.

“That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture,” Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders, said Thursday.

Bush is going to be remembered as the most hated president ever in the history of the United States. He has tainted our reputation across the world, and our children and grandchildren yet unborn will still be paying for his mistakes when they are old men and women.

Maybe once he leaves office, we should ask those Mayan priests to come and purify the White House, too.

Violent Crime In Cities On The Rise

Violent crime is on the rise in cities, according to a piece in the NYT. According to the article, it mostly involves low income young men in their late teens and early twenties. Why would so many young people, who have their entire lives before them, want to engage in activities that are sure to destroy their futures?

For many years, various “experts” on both the right and the left have grappled with this question. The right tend to blame the country’s “moral decline,” in essence, that the poor are somehow morally inferior to everyone else, and that gays and feminists are to blame for the rise in crime. Many on the left tend to see the problem in purely economic terms, or as a simple question of gun control, believing that by increasing money available for social programs and limiting access to legal firearms, that the crime rate will go down.

But it’s not just a question of morality, or laziness on the part of young people and their parents. Neither is it a question of gun control–people will find ways to kill each other without guns, just as they did for thousands of years before the invention of gunpowder. Though those who see violence as a symptom of poverty are partly right–and social programs that benefit the poor have done much to prevent widespread hunger and homelessness, especially among children, this still isn’t the whole answer.

The truth is that most people would rather not be reduced to surviving on charity and handouts. They would rather go out, work a job, and raise their families without outside intervention or help. They want to do more than just scrape by from day to day–they want to have a real life, and a real future. They want a fair shot at the American Dream.

Racism, sexism, and the myriad other ugly forms of discrimination in this country all but guarantee that anyone who is not a white Protestant male is going to face some pretty rough odds in achieving the Dream. Higher education is out of reach for many poor people–even those who can get financial assistance must balance the need to eat and keep a roof over their heads with their studies–not to mention the fact that K-12 education in poor districts leaves many students ill-prepared for college. Globalization continues to ship good paying jobs outside the country, forcing even many educated people into low paying service jobs.

Young people turn to crime when they lose hope that they can have a future–not just a future that consists of working 16 hours a day at a dead end job in order to barely survive,  or a life on the public dole, but a life that is worth looking forward to.

The real question is not why violent crime is up–the real–and truly painful question, is what we must do in order to give our young people hope.

Democrats Introduce Legislation Limiting Military’s Role In Iraq

According to an article published in The Washington Post, the plan will call for withdrawal of combat brigades by 2008 and will limit the military’s role to training Iraqi troops, counter-terrorism, and border security. It will repeal the 2002 authorization for war with Iraq.

“I’ve had enough of ‘nonbinding,’ ” said Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who is helping to draft the new Democratic proposal. The 2002 war resolution, he said, is an obvious target.

“The authorization that we gave the president back in 2002 is completely, completely outdated, inappropriate to what we’re engaged in today,” he said.

“We gave the president that power to destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and, if necessary, to depose Saddam Hussein,” Biden said of the 2002 resolution in a speech last week before the Brookings Institution. “The WMD was not there. Saddam Hussein is no longer there. The 2002 authorization is no longer relevant to the situation in Iraq.”

Well, at least Congress is trying to do something to control the Dictator in Chief–but they need to do more. 

America is pissed. The Democratic majority we voted in back in November was a mandate, not a request.  

If the Democrats don’t get on the ball, they may find themselves back in the minority again come next election.

Phishing Scams Target Job Seekers

Internet crooks will leave no stone unturned when it comes to finding ways to rip people off.

Now, it seems the latest target for the crooks are job seekers–people who, out of the desire to land a job, divulge their personal information to a prospective “employer”–in what turns out to be a front for collecting personal information.

After reading this, I am starting to come to the conclusion that having a bank account in this country is no safer than putting your money in a can, and burying it in the back yard.

When are we going to see some serious legislation dealing with identity theft? It’s not enough to just fine the scammers–many of them are overseas anyway, where we can’t touch them. No, we need some sort of public database that every site that collects personal information should have to register with before they can do business in the United States–perhaps charging a registration fee to those located outside the US. If the fucking NSA can monitor people’s phone calls and e-mail, then keeping track of who collects personal information should not be too much of a problem.

Bush’s War On Terror–A Failure

A report in the NYT reveals that after, despite the fact that the Bush administration has made war on the Taliban and Al Qaeda for last 5 years, they are rapidly regaining power and are setting up new training camps along the border with Afghanistan.

This just shows what a monumental fuck up the Iraq War has been. While it is predictable that religious extremists will always boil with hatred towards people who hold other beliefs–kind of the way the Taliban hates Christians and some Christians hate Muslims–our actions have made the idea of committing acts of terrorism appealing to a much broader swath of people. With every bullet we fire, we are creating new insurgents in Iraq–a percentage of whom will move on to become terrorists ingroups like Al Queda.

Terrorist groups–and extremist religious movements–tend to most strongly attract those who have been disenfranchised in some way–like many of people in that region who have lost jobs, homes, businesses, and family members due to the war we are waging.

The majority of the people in the middle east could care less who the president of the United States happens to be. They could care less about the tensions between different religious groups, as long as they are not personally affected. They care about raising their families and going to their jobs every day, just like the majority of us. They only start caring once what other people (meaning us) do to them starts to impede their ability to live their lives–likewhen we drop bombs that kill their children and destroy their homes. Then, they don’t care about “collateral damage.” They don’t care about the fact that most of our troops are good, decent people–they only remember the ones who engage in torture, rape, and murdering the innocent in cold blood.  And they don’t give a big shit if the majority of Americans are behind the war or not. Once they have been fucked with personally, moderation is out the window–they want revenge.

Enter Al Qaeda–a group which promises them the opportunity to exact revenge. Which crouches their doctrine of hatred in religious tones–making it okay to go and kill the infidels–even if those infidels happen to be innocent men, women, children. Even if a few fellow Muslims have to get killed in the process. Kind of like the hate filled doctrine of the religious right over here–it’s okay to kill the blasphemers (both the domestic and the foreign kind) who don’t follow the ONE TRUE VERSION of God’s word, as long as it helps to bring on the Rapture. So what if a few gays, feminists, or Muslims have to die? So what if the country is bankrupted, and children are starving in the streets?

Bush has shown that he doesn’t have a whole lot of common sense when it comes to understanding how the lower 90% lives, what they care about, or how the actions of a few cause misery and suffering for the many. He is the sort who thinks it is possible to pummel people who don’t bow to his will into submission–whether it is at home or abroad. This is why, at least under Bush, the danger of terrorism towards Americans will continue to grow.

If we are going to win the war on terror, we have to prove that we are better than the terrorists. We have to stop engaging in torture. We have to stop killing the innocent. We have to stop strong-arming countries that are weaker than we are in order to pillage their natural resources. And most of all, we have to stop engaging in wars of aggression based on lies. Only then will we stop fanning the flames of terrorism.

Health Care Costs Expected To Rise Even More

According to anAP article on MSNBC’s website, healthcare costs will take up $1 out of every $5 within one decade. Out of pocket expenses are supposed to rise from an average annual cost of $850 per year to about $1400 per year.

In other words, health care will be unaffordable for all but the very well-to-do. Already, roughly 40 million Americans lack health insurance, with more and more members of the middle class losing coverage every day. Government programs such as Medicaid have been slashed, leaving many individuals–including some children with disabilities–without access to the care they need. The high costs of health insurance is making it increasingly difficult for US businesses–especially those requiring skilled labor–to compete in world markets.

There is only one solution to the problem–single payer health care for all Americans–paid for by tax dollars.

 

 

 

The Media’s Effect On Girls

The BBC has published an article telling us something we already knew–that portraying women as sex objects is harmful to girls. At an early age, girls are socialized to believe that must be physically appealing in order to be a worthwhile human being–as a result, millions of women suffer from eating disorders or self-esteem problems.

The real, deeper issue, however, is how western society views women–whether she is a “virgin”, a “madonna”, or a “whore”, a woman’s purpose–at least according to the traditional view–is always to serve men. The sexism that is rampant in our society destroys girls before they ever have a chance to live.

Sexism is why girls are not valued for their intellects–and why women still earn less money than men for doing the same job. Our society’s double standard is why a woman who is a sloppy housekeeper (despite the fact that she may work 12 hours a day) might be considered a “bad mother” to her children, while a stay an unemployed dad who sits at home watching TV all day with dishes rotting in the sink would never have to worry about being labelled a bad parent. The list goes on and on…if you’ve read this far without writing me off as an anti-Christian, anti-male radical feminist, then you get the idea.

The media needs to start portraying more positive role models for girls–but as long as “sex sells” we won’t see any change. The only way we will change things for the better is if we parents start taking a more active role in the way we socialize our children–both boys and girls–and stop spending money on products that teach our daughters values that are demeaning to them.