Friday, May 28, 2004

Gone fishin'

The blog will be back Tuesday-ish, since in true UU style, I am running off to WHUUF's annual Camp MacGruder retreat. Since my personal budget is tight this year, I offered to cook for all 75 of us (or at least be meal planner, head shopper, and kitchen wrangler) in exchange for the scholarship Joseph and I would have gotten anyway. Besides, what better way to get to know a new congregation (I moved to SW Portland on 3/15) than to coordinate the kitchen at a weekend event?

Here's a sneak peak at some posts in draft that you might see emerge next week:

Weapons of Media Destruction
-- in which Slate and Shava take apart Judith Miller's NYTimes pre-war WMD reporting. Does the M stand for Moriarty?

Please reform welfare reform!
If your man dies, you get social security survivor's benefits for you and your kids. But if he ditches you, you are thrown into a living hell, and told to stick your kids into substandard childcare when their abandonment issues are raw and bleeding, and take the first job that you can get regardless of how it tears up your family logistics. Family values? So, as a modest proposal, maybe more of the bums should just show up in the East River... Yeah, that's the ticket... Yeah...

Shava's tips for phone banking
Think you can't get on a phone and ask a stranger for money? Be a telemarketer for progressive social change! I'll show you how to rationalize even deciding to try it, and give you some tips on how to kick ass and make friends shilling for political contributions.

For the elaborations of these and other vital issues of the day ("What about Naomi?") tune in next week for more UUs for Kerry!

Singing a song...side by side...

So, the big question is, who will be John Kerry's running mate? For me, of course, one of the saddest bits is that Howard Dean will never even see a place on the ticket. Who is going to accept a ticket with two white liberal elite yankee guys?

McCain is right out, despite rumors. He's said "NO WAY" with enough vehemence, I thoroughly believe him.

Hillary Clinton? About 20% of the country loves her, about 20% think she'd gag a maggot. Too much potential swing in the middle, there, I think. Plus, female veeps don't have a good history.

If you can't tell the players without a scorecard, this article in Slate might be just the cheat-sheet for you.

We'll have to wait until my birthday (July 29th, the last day of the Democratic Convention in Boston) to find out who's the other half for this buddy movie.

Thursday, May 27, 2004

Say it ain't so, Ralph!

I grew up revering Ralph Nader, Nader's Raiders, the PIRG organizers. Last election I vote traded with a guy in Georgia so I could vote for Gore here, and still know the Greens were getting one more chad.

But this article in the Village Voice is really chilling.

I want to hear from Nader that this man has been fired, because I want to know that this is not Nader's base agenda:


Later I was introduced to Nader's closest adviser, his handsome, piercingly intelligent 30-year-old nephew, Tarek Milleron. Although Milleron argued that environmentalists and other activists would find fundraising easier under Bush, he acknowledged that a Bush presidency would be worse for poor and working-class people, for blacks, for most Americans. As Moore had, he claimed that Nader's campaign would encourage Web-based vote-swapping between progressives in safe and contested states. But when I suggested that Nader could gain substantial influence in a Democratic administration by focusing his campaign on the 40 safe states and encouraging his supporters elsewhere to vote Gore, Milleron leaned coolly toward me with extra steel in his voice and body. He did not disagree. He simply said, "We're not going to do that."

"Why not?" I said.

With just a flicker of smile, he answered, "Because we want to punish the Democrats, we want to hurt them, wound them."

There was a long silence and the conversation was over.


Oh, Ralph... Oh, geez...

My bumper sticker for Ralph Nader this year:

Ralph Nader
...unsafe at any speed...

Ballot box gallows humor?

So, it could be that you don't know about all the controversy about Diebold's (and others) voting machines. Perhaps you didn't hear that the CEO of Diebold -- a prominent Republican -- pledged to personally deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush. Through ardent activism. Of course.

But this guy has put together an AdBusters-like set of Diebold parody ads that has had me laughing until I'm about to bust something. A must see, but slow loading:


The Diebold Variations

My query letter to The Nation

So, I've been having fun with this blog, writing every day -- and you don't see what else I write, in terms of email, journal articles, newsletter bits, whatever. I write fast, and I write all the time.

All my life I've wanted to be a writer, but when I was younger, I was always afraid of rejection. Writing was my art, it wasn't just what I do. Well, today, at 44, writing is more what I am than what I do. And I've got a decade or so of experience with major donor fundraising and consultative sales, membership organizations, and similar headaches.

If you remove the fear of rejection, it's just a marketing problem.

So here is the query I submitted to The Nation today:


Robert Putnam’s recent book, Better Together, praises Portland Oregon as the American paragon of civic engagement. Howard Dean came here to make his first whistlestop with John Kerry, meeting with two dozen of his key volunteers to ask how to bring the Deaners into the Kerry fold. We were, as usual, ahead of him.

From the unemployed executive who prepares organic picnics from the farmer’s market for visiting pols, to an aspiring National Nurse, to the team of peaceable insurgents who are revitalizing Portland’s Democratic Party – the Deaners of Portland are geared up for the road to Boston and the White House.

As a key volunteer with the Portland Dean campaign, I’ve seen my city come alive with Democratic activism from elderly south Asian widows to eleven year old boys. Portland is making political organizing history by mobilizing every every class, ethnicity, profession, age, gender and sexual orientation.

Hundreds of twenty-somethings attended a political gala to hear rock stars and see high electeds model fashions on a runway. “Shoeleather brigades” and the Bus Project deploy SWAT teams of canvassers. We’re signing hundreds of new precinct workers – and making precinct work cool with our Feet on the Street program.

“Little Beirut” has grown up – we plan to be a model for the country, leading the rest of the states in grassroots savvy in this online/offline campaign. We’ll teach every progressive in the country how to take back the country – and the DNC – over the next four years.


I also submitted half a dozen other articles on varying subjects to half a dozen other magazines. I'll tell you if anything comes of it.

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

John Zogby: "Score the first round for Kerry"

Even before John Zogby published this, he's been my favorite political pollster ever since I started paying attention to his website after 9/11.

From his email today, to his many fans (and clients!):


If the election for president of the
United States were held today, Democratic
challenger John Kerry would win easily,
approaching the sort of lopsided electoral
college victories reminiscent of the
Clinton 90s and the Reagan 80s.

14 page report now available click the link below to learn more!
http://www.zogby.com/features/features.dbm?ID=212

The Zogby Interactive poll measured 16 states
individually that make up the battleground for
the White House this year. In those states, 177
electoral votes are up for grabs in the November
election. That this is the battleground couldn’t
be more clear: if Mr. Bush were to win the same
states in that group that he won four years ago,
he would reap 89 electoral votes, while Democrat
John Kerry would win 88.

Pollster John Zogby: “ In virtually every state polled,
the polarities of support are remarkable. Kerry scores
nearly or above 90% support among Democrats, while Bush
claims the same percentages among Republicans. Kerry also
draws about nine in ten voters who say that the country is
heading in the wrong direction, while Bush claims the same
support among those who feel the country is headed in the
right direction. Both candidates are gaining the same
advantages among -liberals (Kerry) and -conservatives (Bush).

Score the first round for Kerry."

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Dear Senator Kerry, good to see you today!

I was the woman in the second row, Senator, who asked you the question, "What can you do for the 26% of our kids in Multnomah County who live in single parent households? What can you do for these families?"

It was good to hear you say that you want to fund afterschool, daycare options, and intervention programs -- on behalf of all working families. I also wonder, myself, if it isn't time for us to institute full-day school for most grades.

The days when parents could pick up their children at 3pm and go home and do chores or crafts or help them do homework before dinner are gone, on the whole. Most of us work (although at the moment, I'm out of work -- and possibly the best thing about this is the extra time with my son!) until dinnertime. Other parents work odd hours, and need better and cheaper daycare options.

In our state, it's a felony to leave a child under 10 years old unsupervised, and yet there are children of all school ages who are left as latchkey kids because of the economic realities of this world. It's that much harder for single parent families where there is only one income from which to skim childcare/afterschool payments.

But I'd like to bring up a deeper issue here. We talk about non-traditional families when we speak of single parent households -- yet today, over 50% of the children born will live in a single parent household before they are out of K12. We have a new tradition, and a new norm. Single parent households are a silent faction in civic life, especially low income single parents. You will rarely see these families represented at the PTA, on the school board, testifying before city council, active in nonprofits and civic affairs. What do we do with our children while we go to a meeting that runs past bedtime? How can we maintain the energy to put back into our community when we are trying to earn an income and be fair to our children?

On behalf of the 26% of the children in Multnomah County who live with single parents, I'd appeal to you to consider in your policies some ways to suggest to the states that the open meeting laws include childcare options (with notice, and perhaps even at a nominal cost). That meeting planners be obligated to record the proxies somehow of all the people who can't make the meeting due to childcare restrictions, timing, or the location of a meeting far away from public transportation access. All these circumstances are as exclusionary as lack of disability access to public buildings -- but they exclude over one in five parents.

When I was growing up, our idea of how to live was just different. In my own family, my mother never worked full time. My father raised three children and supported a wife on a rural minister's salary. We lived modestly, but we owned a thirteen room house with a big yard, and we had a new car every seven years or somesuch. I didn't know my family was "working poor" -- we were well educated people accepted in middle class professional circles.

But I remember the thrill when I was sixteen and had enough money (I think it was $8) from babysitting to buy the first item of new clothing I'd ever bought from a store that wasn't underwear.

This was a world where my mother was a full time mom and a key volunteer in so many church and other projects. She and many other ladies in our little town of Montpelier, VT were always doing something to make our community better. Children were considered a fact of life at these affairs, not an embarrassment and a burden -- because so much of the glue that held our community together consisted of stay-at-home moms doing good work for no pay.

Women's lives held our community together in a way that doesn't happen anymore. Folks like Robert Putnam have commented on this. If you want to see a stronger America, find a way to bring working parents back into civic life.

Sometimes I feel like the media has stolen the dignity of single parent families and the working poor. But there is much that policy can do to reinvolve us, and make us feel like full participants again -- and by extention, help us raise our children as good citizens and good participants in their own communities.

Please think about these things, programmatically, in your policy, and in the compassion you must maintain in the face of the huge pressures of your office. Remember the people like me and my son who are sacrificing time we can ill afford to help you gain high office. We are participating despite the odds against us because we know this election will transform our country, and we feeled called to duty as much as any candidate for office, to make things change.

Monday, May 24, 2004

Chuck Currie: Giving a rat's ass

Chuck Currie is frustrated. And rightly so. One of his unchurched liberal friends thinks that any political or social opinion that originates with a church is subject to rude dismissal.

His friend writes:


Sorry, I must have missed something. Why should I give a rat's ass what a bunch of preachers think about when American forces should withdraw from Iraq, any more than I care what Jerry Falwell thinks about sex education or what the Pope thinks about stem cell research?


On Chuck's blog, I observed in the comments:

In most of our churches we have strong social action groups, from the Catholic Charities to the Friends Service Committee. These groups have always acted, often very modestly and quietly, to improve the lives of people around the globe. They may have very strongly worded internal political and social messages, particularly on political issues that avoid partisan politics.

However, all these organizations vary in the amount of demonstrated faith they require of the beneficiaries. A Catholic or Salvation Army shelter may require attendence at services. A Unitarian Universalist soup kitchen or Friends medical service corps may not.

Recently, criticism of "faith based initiatives" getting money from the public sector has somehow made all of these charitable acts suspect, and many liberals in particular look on any statement from the religious left, right, or center as equally suspect. Even more than before.

As that rare creature, the highly faith-motivated Unitarian Universalist, I straddle the divide. For many liberals who are not particularly religious, the idea of faith motivation assumes android-like adherence to some church authority's agenda.

To this putative liberal of little faith, if you are speaking as a person of faith on issues in the public sphere, you are either forcing the will of others into conformance with your ugly authoritarian agenda, or you are the dangerous victim of such an agenda.

There's very little understanding that many of us (duh) draw our liberal values, our progressive values, from our faith.

The American liberal is likely to think that the Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hanh or Gandhi were cool, and that MLK is ok because he's dead and they have never really listened to any of his speeches for more than the 10-second slices played on the second Monday in January.

But western Christian religious leadership is something that scares the living crap out of many of us American liberals. Not me, though. I find that Christian political thought runs the entire spectrums of liberal/conservative and authoritarian/anarchist).

Unfortunately I am still stuck with the hard work of evaluating each person on the content of their character, rather than the color of their hymnbook.


It seems to me important that we make it OK to discuss our values as our motivations for action in the public sphere -- issue or partisan politics, education policy, and so on. And if those values are informed by our religious faith, or our spiritual set if you prefer, we should not feel that it is taboo to be open in that because it is as much of who we are as our family culture, our ethnicity, our gender, our sexual orientation, or any of the other aspects that shape our lives.

Yes, in fact, I think we should all be comfortable discussing sex, religion, and politics in the same paragraph. We must. These topics make us uncomfortable because they are both vital and inescapable. And if we don't take responsibility for them, they will control us utterly.

A visit to Multnomah County Elections

Jim Robison, chair of the Mulnomah Democrats, and I made a field trip today to the Multnomah County Elections office. Situated in a bland institutional building in a mixed use neighborhood in SE Portland, the elections offices seem like one big room upstairs without a lot of cube dividers, filled with busy administrators.

A long counter runs along the length of the building near the public doors, with signs that say things like "No cell phone use in this building" and "No public restrooms" and "Visitors must check in." A cork board is festooned with public notices, county job postings, and important dates.

Overall, the first impression is bland and impersonal bureaucracy. But the people here work with a glint in their eye this time of year. It's ballot certification time.

Last week was the election, and the counts for the more prominent elected offices have long since been announced. But there's an important ballot count still going on in the basement.

After checking in, Jim and I are ushered through a low gate in the formica curtain wall that separates the public from the election workers, navigate through a series of swinging doors, down a wide stair to the ballot dungeon.

Where the upstairs office radiate blandness, the basement -- dim, cavernous, and permeated with the awful smell of hot asphalt from street construction outside -- feels like a 40's sweatshop. Dull concrete floors are dotted with filing carts and document bins.

In one corner, about ten long folding tables are set up, perhaps four or five in use. This is where the dungeon effect falls away. In this brightly lit corner, a dozen or so grey haired women sit in groups, three or four at a table, certifying the marked-up and write-in ballots for Precinct Committee Persons.

Somehow I had expected computer scanners, cube walls, bright expensive offices, brisk young professionals consulting printouts. But this looks more like a meeting of the elder contingent of the League of Women voters, armed with number two pencils and canary tally sheets where they tick off votes next to the printed and written-in names for each precinct, shuffling manila envelopes with sheafs of ballots. I feel like I've come through a very pleasant time warp, far from the shrill controversies over Diebold's voting machines.

One by one, tick mark by tick mark, our volunteers are elected by their neighbors. Here in Portland, the precinct worker is the lowest ranking elected official of the political system. You need three votes to get certified for an uncontested seat. Each precinct might have a maximum of eight or so precinct workers, evenly divided between male and female allocated posts.

We PCPs (yes, I had a problem with the acronym too...) are the infantry of democracy. We walk our neighborhoods registering voters, urging people to vote, informing our neighbors on candidates and ballot measures. In our state, only the Democratic and Republican Parties elect precinct workers on the public ballot -- the Pacific Greens, Socialists, Libertarians, and other parties have their own less formal structures due to their smaller organizations.

In Portland, some precincts are almost inherited seats. Generations of families share the precinct dueties, sometimes multiple generations out of single households. We have some PCPs who are not terribly active, but the Party has been part of their social life their whole adult life. Since most precincts aren't filled to the maximum count, there's no real pressure on these folks. This year, due to the re-entry or new entry of folks as activists in the Democratic Party, we have more PCPs filing for office, on the ballot, than ever. But for all those folks who didn't know to enter by the filing date, we've tried to tell them all -- just write your own name in and get two registered Democrats in your neighborhood to write you in, and you're in the club!

Here in a puddle of light in this dim echoing pit, cheerful women work at each table to certify the PCP votes, and squint to decipher the write-ins. Later in the week, Jim and I will be back when all the ballots are certified to check to make sure folks who informed us that they were trying for write-ins got elected, if possible. Sometimes, knowing that a person is running lets us help to decipher an otherwise barely legible vote.

If the person isn't voted in, they can't vote at our annual organizational meeting on the first of July when we elect officers for the year. But all year, people come to us and are appointed as PCPs for the remainder of the year at our monthly meetings, generally at the Hollywood Senior Center. These monthly gatherums are archaically designated as the "Central Committee Meeting" -- a phrase that evokes, to me, an image of some soviet-era smoke-filled room with six fat old men with a bottle of vodka, but is actually just our general monthly meeting replete with chat and munchies.

Next week, we'll be contacting our new and old PCPs to make sure they get their confirmations into elections before the annual meeting -- but today, we're observing. It's in this featureless basement that the volunteers and the professionals of the machinery of democracy meet, observe process, and smile at each other in the pool of light surrounded by darkness. Everyone here feels like they are helping to make things work better.

to NPR's Day to Day: Use critical thinking, regarding the national conventions, please

Today at about 1:15pm on WOPB, I was listening to someone on Day to Day speak with a Slate political correspondent. They were talking about John Kerry's notion to defer accepting the nomination.

As a person active in Democratic politics this year, let me assure you that *we* do not think this is a "fake convention" because Kerry is strategically working the system for our best win. In fact, if you are going to talk about "fake conventions" -- then why are the Republicans having a convention at all? Their nominee was never in question. Perhaps you should think beyond the media feeding frenzy on this issue, and use your common sense.

I am so tired of the press -- and NPR folks should know better -- talking about the convention as though the only people who matter are the ones on the dias. Our political conventions are part of a significant national dialogue where activists of all flavors join to hammer out a consensus on platform issues, and discuss the future direction of the parties.

This year, at the Democratic Convention, an unprecendented amount of "new blood" will be calling for accountability, coming out of the Dean and Kucinich campaigns, and including many young people -- and older people -- who never felt the urge for political involvement before this year.

For shame on both of you! *THAT* is the story you should be covering, rather than sounding so professionally jaded and sophisticated as thought the whole thing were just a sham for your cameras and microphones.

All politics is local, and this is every American locale conjoining in one union, finding a voice. That should appeal to you. Cover *that*.

Sincerely,
--
Shava Nerad
shava@efn.org

Emerson essay for this week

Every week, around Sunday, I'm going to try to include some material from a Unitarian or Universalist thinker to inform our perspective on current affairs.

This week, my selection is from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson's style may sound a bit stilted to the modern ear, but imagine this as an address given as a sermon -- read it aloud, if you would, and you'll hear the rhythms of it.

Much of this essay is couched as a dialog between a Conservative and an Innovator. Although much of the essay is meant as an apology and elucidation of the rationale of the Conservative, toward the end, the Innovator seems to be the hope for the future.
(In some of Emerson's work, he differentiates between conservatives and democrats, those being the two major party factions of his time.)

I'll say for myself that many of my friends are conservatives of the old school -- what I think of as "baby with the bathwater" conservatives who fear that we barrel headlong into change and lose more than we gain.

Liberals, of course, barrel headlong into the future with equal faith in the Progress of Man [sic].

Emerson in many of his essays identifies youth with liberalism and age with conservatism. "The democrat is a young conservative; the conservative an old democrat. The aristocrat is the democrat ripe and gone to seed."

Or, to quote a bumper sticker I gave my hippie brother when his only girl hit high school: "A conservative is a liberal with a sixteen year old daughter." I don't think it was Emerson who said that, but he might have!

So, with that introduction:

The Conservative

A Lecture delivered at the Masonic Temple, Boston, December 9, 1841



The conservative party in the universe concedes that the radical would talk sufficiently to the purpose, if we were still in the garden of Eden; he legislates for man as he ought to be; his theory is right, but he makes no allowance for friction; and this omission makes his whole doctrine false.

The idealist retorts, that the conservative falls into a far more noxious error in the other extreme. The conservative assumes sickness as a necessity, and his social frame is a hospital, his total legislation is for the present distress, a universe in slippers and flannels, with bib and papspoon, swallowing pills and herb-tea. Sickness gets organized as well as health, the vice as well as the virtue. Now that a vicious system of trade has existed so long, it has stereotyped itself in the human generation, and misers are born. And now that sickness has got such a foot-hold, leprosy has grown cunning, has got into the ballot-box; the lepers outvote the clean; society has resolved itself into a Hospital Committee, and all its laws are quarantine.

If any man resist, and set up a foolish hope he has entertained as good against the general despair, society frowns on him, shuts him out of her opportunities, her granaries, her refectories, her water and bread, and will serve him a sexton's turn. Conservatism takes as low a view of every part of human action and passion.

Its religion is just as bad; a lozenge for the sick; a dolorous tune to beguile the distemper; mitigations of pain by pillows and anodynes; always mitigations, never remedies; pardons for sin, funeral honors, — never self-help, renovation, and virtue.

Its social and political action has no better aim; to keep out wind and weather, to bring the day and year about, and make the world last our day; not to sit on the world and steer it; not to sink the memory of the past in the glory of a new and more excellent creation; a timid cobbler and patcher, it degrades whatever it touches.

The cause of education is urged in this country with the utmost earnestness, — on what ground? why on this, that the people have the power, and if they are not instructed to sympathize with the intelligent, reading, trading, and governing class, inspired with a taste for the same competitions and prizes, they will upset the fair pageant of Judicature, and perhaps lay a hand on the sacred muniments of wealth itself, and new distribute the land.

Religion is taught in the same spirit. The contractors who were building a road out of Baltimore, some years ago, found the Irish laborers quarrelsome and refractory, to a degree that embarrassed the agents, and seriously interrupted the progress of the work. The corporation were advised to call off the police, and build a Catholic chapel; which they did; the priest presently restored order, and the work went on prosperously.

Such hints, be sure, are too valuable to be lost. If you do not value the Sabbath, or other religious institutions, give yourself no concern about maintaining them. They have already acquired a market value as conservators of property; and if priest and church-member should fail, the chambers of commerce and the presidents of the Banks, the very innholders and landlords of the county would muster with fury to their support.

Of course, religion in such hands loses its essence. Instead of that reliance, which the soul suggests on the eternity of truth and duty, men are misled into a reliance on institutions, which, the moment they cease to be the instantaneous creations of the devout sentiment, are worthless. Religion among the low becomes low. As it loses its truth, it loses credit with the sagacious. They detect the falsehood of the preaching, but when they say so, all good citizens cry, Hush; do not weaken the state, do not take off the strait jacket from dangerous persons.

Every honest fellow must keep up the hoax the best he can; must patronize providence and piety, and wherever he sees anything that will keep men amused, schools or churches or poetry, or picture-galleries or music, or what not, he must cry "Hist-a-boy," and urge the game on. What a compliment we pay to the good SPIRIT with our superserviceable zeal!

Sunday, May 23, 2004

Try this fun word game!

Take the letters in:

Project for a New American Century

Scramble the letters to create an upcoming headline!

Here's my favorite:

Can jury fete neocon war crime trap?

(OK, so I saw "neocon war crime" in the letters and the rest came with very little effort...I'm a wicked Scrabble player! ;)

Ken Burns speaks truth to power at Yale commencement

Ken Burns spoke at Kerry and Bush's alma mater today, criticising the war in Iraq and our current rash of leaders (and all our attitudes about black and white, good and evil in politics):


"Steel yourselves. Your generation must repair this damage, and it will not be easy," Burns told the seniors.

Burns quoted famed jurist Learned Hand as saying, "Liberty is never being too sure you're right."

"Somehow recently, though, we have replaced our usual and healthy doubt with an arrogance and belligerence that resembles more the ancient and now fallen empires of our history books than a modern compassionate democracy," Burns said, to applause from the 1,300 graduates and their families and friends.

He criticized what he called a culture of censorship and intimidation that was intolerant of others, as well as a compliant media and a consumer culture that values the pursuit of money above everything.

"We have begun to reduce the complexities of modern life into the facile judgments of good and evil, and now find ourselves brought up short when we see that we have, too, some times and moments, become what we despise," Burns said.

-- AP, quoted in the Record-Journal (Meriden, CT)


Although Burns is cited as being critical of the war, I think he speaks to a polarization I doubt in myself. Can the neocons really be as crazed as they seem to me somedays? (But then I go back and review PNAC). Sometimes it seems hard to believe.

I wish I could talk to Burns directly about his historian's perspective on the affairs of the day!

Letter to the President of the Republic -- J'accuse!

Who woulda thunk? This week, Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 took the Palme d'Or, the highest honor at the annual Cannes Film Festival.

This is one we might be talking about in the history books, although I wonder if it can hold up as well as Zola's work.

The Cannes jury (headed by Tarentino, and comprised of four Americans and only one Frenchman) defends the award on the merits of the film per se, rather than its message.

Days ago there were doubts if Moore could find someone to distribute the film, as Disney has pulled their distribution and blocked Miramax and was delaying their owners from buying and distributing the film independently. Learn about the controversy surrounding the corporate distribution of the film here.

Some of the international press is murmuring how this documentary could be decisive in the race. However, there's a lot more reporting going on overseas than stateside at this point. Check out all the stories on Google News.

Saturday, May 22, 2004

Horserace reporting and sources for news

It's inevitable that most of the reporting on this race, regardless of quality, is going to be "horserace reporting" -- reporting on the odds of the election and its mechanics, rather than on the issues or the candidates themselves.

Even when I like the results, I have to put in a caveat -- every story you see like this is editorial material. Even if they limit themselves to statistics, the scope of a news story limits the reporter to reporting the statistics and a shred of analysis that reflects their idea of what's important -- i.e. bias.

If you want to think about the election, make sure that you read multiple sources. I like to browse through Google News to see what the world is saying about John Kerry. I also read the Guardian, home of Greg Palast, every night before I go to bed.

International perspectives are increasingly important to this race -- and international news relating to the US (i.e. the Guardian's "world coverage" of US elections, or the Iraq war) can enrichen your perspective. Many of the important reports on US issues from the international press don't make it to US corporate media -- or don't make it intact.

My family were interested in international politics when I was growing up. At the time, the best domestic newspaper was the Christian Science Monitor. Where the monitor is still a good paper on international news, relatively speaking, it doesn't have the budget (or the will, really, since restructuring back in the 90's) to really keep up with the international scene. The International Herald Tribune used to be another trusted source for me, but now they are owned by the New York Times, which, while a decent paper, seems increasingly nervous about risky reporting since editorial scandals smacked them around last year.

But to me, as noted on last Tuesday, one of the saddest things is the press corps that's following Kerry. Since then, I've been combing Google for news of Kerry's whistle stops. Invariably, local media is reporting on his full platform, as presented to their community. National press is picking one hot issue and blasting that. If it can't be made a sidebar on whatever is "top of the fold, front page" as their main news story, it's not worth reporting. So dog the net for local reporting if you want to hear a few tidbits of what the candidate is really doing.

In media, "caveat emptor," let the consumer beware.

Friday, May 21, 2004

Unitarian Universalist church in Texas denied religious status by state

According to Knight-Ridder new service, the comptroller (tax authorities) of the state of Texas have denied the Unitarian Universalist church tax exempt status.


Questions about the issue were referred to Jesse Ancira, the comptroller's top lawyer, who said Strayhorn has applied a consistent standard - and then stuck to it. For any organization to qualify as a religion, members must have "simply a belief in God, or gods, or a higher power," he said.

"We have got to apply a test, and use some objective standards," Ancira said. "We're not using the test to deny the exemptions for a particular group because we like them or don't like them."

Since Strayhorn took over in January 1999, the comptroller's office has denied religious tax-exempt status to 17 groups and granted them to more than 1,000, according to records obtained by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Although there are exceptions, the lion's share of approvals have gone to groups that appear to have relatively traditional faiths, records show.

But of the denials, at least a fourth include less traditional groups. In addition to the Denison Unitarian church, the rejected groups include a Carrollton, Texas, group of atheists and agnostics, a New Age group in Bastrop, Texas, and the Whispering Star Clan/Temple of Ancient Wisdom, an organization of witches in Copperas Cove, Texas.


Unbelievable. Some days when people use the term "culture war," I feel like they are paranoid, and then something like this happens.

Four more years of tolerance for this kind of nonsense?

Thursday, May 20, 2004

MoveOn PAC is trying to get John Kerry to open up his appeal to the left, rather than chasing the center. You can send a message via MoveOn PAC here. Here's the personal text I included in my message to the Senator:


It was truly a pleasure to see you in action in a small group this past Tuesday at the workforce development center in Portland. It's a pity all the AP could manage to cover was an aside on energy policy. If more people could see you, as I saw you then -- not an officer on parade, but as a man speaking to the people for whom he is working hard -- then more people would *get* what this campaign is about.

As a key Dean volunteer in this state, I stood in awe of Deans ability to include the Rockefeller republicans and the true scrappy lefties under one tent. You can do so if you can relax in front of a crowd. Open your stance, be at ease, and show people how you relate to each one of us, and bring us the message that you are bringing with a full heart, as well as square shoulders.

When MoveOn says, "Go Big! Ask More!" they mean that you should win by extending a left wing to the tent. But I think you can just truly go big and make that tent reach from the true, old-fashioned conservative all the way to the union families and our beloved tree huggers.

Take those strong shoulders and start driving tent stakes, Senator Kerry! We have a big tent to pitch before the end of July.

I hope I see you at the convention in Boston.


Why should we settle for the left or the middle? Let's include everyone. This year of all the past 50+ years, that's truly possible.

Josh Marshall (thehill) says: Step Back Kerry, let Bush Fall

In today's issue of thehill.com
columnist Josh Marshall (of Talking Points Memo) advises Kerry that he's doing well by giving Bush the spotlight right now:


So what should Kerry be doing? Many Democrats are complaining that he’s AWOL from the campaign, that he’s not making his presence felt at just the time when the case against the president needs to be made.

On the contrary, letting Bush have all the spotlight now probably makes a lot of sense.

Think of this battle as a prizefight, with both men in the ring. If you’re up on points and the seconds are ticking down in the final round, what do you do? Simple: stay out of the other guy’s way.

Kerry gives props to Nader, urges perspective

The UK's Guardian posted this article on Kerry's conversation with Nader yesterday.


But Mr Kerry asked Mr Nader not to judge him by his predecessors.

"I have fought with you. I have been with you on a range of issues and you should judge me by my record in the Senate," he said


But Kerry did not, bluntly, ask Nader to step down from his candidacy.

My opinion?


Nader for President 2004
Unsafe at any Speed


Tuesday, May 18, 2004

A more intimate look at the candidate

At about 11pm, a friend calls: "How do you feel about an early morning?" At something before 8am, Gavin White, Joyce McGreevy and I are being wanded down and sniffed by dogs, and ushered into the small auditorium at the PCC Metro Workplace Training Center at NE 42nd and Killingsworth. The sidewalk is laced with cables from the media trucks, and there are a cordon of perhaps 25 motorcycle police briefing near where I park my car.

People in line for the secret service briefing murmur to each other, their eyes bright. Black women looking natty in dark business suits. Students. Camera men looking, perhaps, a little less jaded than usual. Some folks, in jeans, wondering if they belong here, waiting to see the next president of the United States.

We're ushered into a small round auditorium. People are whispering, chatting, greeting each other, bantering. Behind me, a GAO auditor is asked if he's here to audit the Kerry press corps. To one side, workforce trainers, and the seats in front of us are reserved for the PCC officials. The high stools for the candidate, Dr. Dean, and three more are no more than ten feet from me. Behind that, a riser is filling up with students ranging in age from perhaps early 20's to middle age.

When the room is full, there are perhaps sixty or seventy of us, including a dozen or more camera and sound crew. We spot Tom McMann, head of Democracy for America, come in to brief the room security. The candidate is here.

Kerry and Dean enter to a rising, clapping crowd. I hum "Hail to the Chief" in Joyce's ear and she smiles. This morning, Kerry looks fresh, rested, relaxed, and comfortable -- not at all the stiff figure I remember from yesterday on stage, or from the media. There is a twinkle in his eye, and I find myself anticipating enjoying what he has to say.

Along with Dr. Dean and John Kerry, three retraining unemployed people sit on the stools in front. After introductions, they tell their stories. One is a programmer, competing for a few jobs a week with a huge unemployed tech force. Another woman was laid off from Boeing's plant in the east county right after 9/11 and is still seeking work. One gentleman, who notes that he started in computing when it was considered that only geniuses could be programmers, barely veils his frustration at going from a six figure salary to less than ten an hour.

These are the people John Kerry is here to help. He outlines his plans for keeping jobs on this shore, and repealing the programs that reward companies for sending jobs overseas. He talks about how his health plan will help. How he will fully fund K12 and continuing education. How he has seen, going from state to state, how all these things have put Americans into an environment of insecurity.

At one point he goes off for a few minutes on how the price of gas is killing us, and how, if he were in charge, that would be one of the first places he could make a difference, by working with diplomacy with OPEC, and manipulating our current reserves to control prices.

Then he goes back to jobs, social programs, bringing back an idea of the American dream for youth entering the workplace, education funding.

It's a good talk. It's interactive. He pulls in questions from the crowd, comments from Dean and the three unemployed people. He's joking around and playing the press. It's animated, intimate, and I begin to understand how some people could love this man. His demeanor has that possibly military formal reserve (in fact, his bearing in his torso is so stiff that to my yoga-trained eye, I wonder if there is some old clavicle or rib cage injury, rather than just mannerism) -- but in a group this small, he is dynamic. He's smiling, reaching to people, including us with his stance and his gestures.

This is the John Kerry I was hoping to see. It's marvelous! You can feel the warmth and sincerity from the man. He is at ease.

I realize that perhaps that's it. Before a large crowd, everything about the man is on the parade grounds. He declaims. He is stiff. But here in a circle of instant friends, he is at ease. He is a man among his people, not an officer rallying his troops.

I wonder if my own subconscious has been reacting to that officer's bearing his projects on the media, old hippy that I am. Food for thought.

Toward the end, I am sold, but I have a meeting with a potential client at 10:30am, and I have to run just as Kerry notes that he has to start wrapping up. However, I am well satisfied that, in my little professional marketing heart, this is a product I can promote with integrity.

Later in the day, I check the internet for stories filed from the press on the morning meeting, but I am dismayed. From this intimate message of hope, there is only one sound byte that gets picked up. "Kerry will lower gas prices." That was a footnote! It had nearly nothing to do with the well-integrated job and education platform he presented. It was not a showcase for the warmth he showed -- in fact it might have been the geekiest moment in the whole presentation.

This is the filter of the press. This is why I urge you to read his stuff on the website and see him in person if you can. Talk to the local Democrats or the local campaign office and see if you can come to a smaller event. It will be worth it. This is a man you wouldn't mind seeing in the West Wing.

Monday, May 17, 2004

UUsforKerry@yahoogroups.com

I've created a new yahoogroup for UUs for Kerry. Go to our page on yahoogroups and sign up. Planning a canvass for your church? List it. Doing a summer service on the importance of democracy? List it! Let's see what's going on.

I'm going to leave this open and unmoderated for now, but PLEASE do not come on the list to flame or spam. If people can't be civil, I'll make it moderated, but I have better use for my time than approving posts and slowing down our conversation...!

Please sign up, and welcome!

A red letter day in Portland

This morning, I sent email to my son's teacher and said, "Joseph and I are declaring a field trip. We have an opportunity to spend most of the day with Howard Dean, and then go to the Kerry rally." To her credit, Claire said that was fine with her, and would no doubt be educational. We went to a 300-person rally at Portland State, which at 1:30pm was filled with young people, with maybe 20% of us old folks (over 30...?) in attendence.

Dean was, as usual, direct, personable, connecting with the crowd, and otherwise frank about his current support for Kerry, and his urge for folks to support Kerry, and if they weren't working for Kerry to work for local progressives, and if not that, run for office yourself! ;)

Then a bunch of us who were key in the Dean campaign here got to meet with Dean in a more intimate setting, and discussed What Comes Next with our movement. Probably half the people in the room were working on Kerry issues already. Most of us are working on GOTV (Get Out The Vote) projects. (Now you know, when you see GOTV, it's not a cable channel! ;)

Then we went to the Kerry rally. We got in the mid-range section, in front of the press risers, behind the "VIP" section. It was lovely to see such a great crowd there.

There were a few opening acts including a musician from Everclear, Representative Earl Blumenaur (district 3 from Oregon, and a great guy on transportation issues amoung others), Barbara Roberts (former governor, and pepperpot -- I want to be her when I grow up!), and then Howard Dean, who got to say some pretty nice things about Kerry. Then a gentleman from the Oregon coast who was from Kerry's unit in Vietnam (Kerry saved his life and he nominated Kerry for a silver star, though Kerry got a bronze w/V). I didn't get his name, but he was a Republican until January, and now he's rousing up support for JK.

Kerry's address was good. He is a little wooden, even in person. He needs to do yoga, or pilates, I think. A lot of tension, beyond the possible stiffness of an old military guy. As a sometimes yoga therapist, it made me wonder if the guy had some old injuries that he hasn't healed right. And his face is not animated.

However, I found his address reasonably inspiring for content, and sincerely delivered. He covered the usual topics -- his policies on health care, non-interventionist foreign policy, human rights by example. It was not just about "I'm not Bush" but more about healing the damage done, and moving forward.

But my ABSOLUTE favorite bit that he pitched was this: Any kid graduating from high school who puts in two years of public service -- whether working with elder shut-ins, tutoring low-income kids, building playgrounds, whatever -- that kid gets four years of tuition free at a state 4-year college or university.

I want to see that -- it could make such a huge difference. It's like the VISTA GI Bill. Right now so many kids are signing up for military service because it's the only way they feel they can hope to get a degree.

Joseph -- my 11 year old son -- says his highlight of the day was hugging Howard Dean. But Kerry's proposal for free tuition for public service tops my list.

Sunday, May 16, 2004

Getting the basic bio for John Kerry

You can read John's take on it. Or you might enjoy his hometown paper taking him on.

Personally, I like his wife.

Some reasons to vote for John Kerry

First, consider the alternative. Singular. Ralph Nader has about as much chance of being president as Lyndon LaRouche at this point.

Second, read what the man has to say. He writes better than he talks, which puts him a step above Bush who can only speak when someone's feeding him rhetoric. But the man doesn't seem to come off as well in the media as he does in "print."

Third, he can inspire a 14-year-old to burst into song. Ok, that's silly, but I had to include it...

Fourth, consider that when you elect a president, you elect a good slice of the executive branch, and influence the selection of supreme court and other high justices, "coattail" elections to Congress, and a zillion other things. How many of Clinton's cabinet did you hate? How did you feel about his appointments? Now, think on these names: Cheney. Rumsfeld. Ashcroft. Wolfowitz. How do you feel about those names? Think of the issues you've seen go radically bad in the last four years, like air quality. Consider if Democrats are likely to support amending the constitution in "defense of marriage."

Fifth, because the people you wanted to win the nomination probably are backing Kerry now. Even Dennis Kucinich, who I voted for in the Oregon primary, because I want to send a progressive message to the national party. But Dennis, Howard Dean and I (and many others) agree that the support must go to the nominee, and Kerry will be that nominee.

Sixth, because we need to engage the radical/religious right, which means we need to get off our duffs before they emanatize the echaton (try to bring on the apocalypse in order to hasten the second coming) on our butts. No kidding. Think we need to stay passive in this decorous age?

Seventh, "Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good: 'Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Eighth -- I want Kerry to modify his stance on the war and a few other issues. I have a much higher chance of doing that if I'm a key volunteer than if I sit at home and gripe. All politics is local. Let's not trickle up -- let's give them a deluge!

Ninth -- you like ketchup with a kick!

More to come...

Democratic stuff 101

Depending on where you are in the country, the words will change. If you are in Louisiana, you are organized by parish on a political basis, rather than a county. If you're in Boston you are part of a ward, and if you are in Oregon, you have a precinct. Here, we have a Central Committee, which is the general monthly meeting of anyone who wants to show up. If you're in Durham NC, everyone's invited to the monthly executive committee meeting, but only exec committee members can vote. The structure and divisions of labor will vary from place to place.

You're first assignment is to figure out what's going on in your state and county: here. Call, email, go to a meeting.

You may be lucky and have a great first experience. But you may not.

Remember that in any nonprofit with the kind of reputation as political activism, there are going to be geeks, fussy compulsive people, over-enthusiastic people with no lives, and power mongers.

Your second assignment (if necessary) is to transcend that for the common good. Get past the patriotic gatekeeper, or the apathetic volunteer coordinator, or the person who really thought that Lieberman should have been the nominee, or whoever.

Find the way to get plugged in. Remember that you are saving the environment, working for a more peaceful world, and inserting one more person of good conscience into the political process -- which means (all politics being local) that eventually we will turn this ship of state around and make it a better thing.

Be persistent. Be heroic. Be patient. Be friendly. Find allies. Go as a team with other like minded folks from your social action committee, YRUU group, or whatever.

Be brave. Remember that little flaming chalice and lay it like a seal upon your heart.

The basic business of a county party is to do a few things:


  • register and get out the vote by canvassing, phone banking, tabling at events, whatever
  • organize Democrats in the county by training and spreading news and holding meetings and delegating the business of the party
  • promote the Democratic party through outreach and events such as parades, presence at major civic and social and arts events, block parties, meetups, and whatever else someone is willing to do
  • endorse and support candidates for public office
  • develop leadership, and recruit candidates for office
  • raise money to be able to do all this through contributions and subscriptions, major donor solicitation, and fundraising events


Probably doesn't look too different from any of the other nonprofits you've been involved with. And just as there are a zillion different nonprofit cultures, each county party is a little different too.

Counties are generally organized on a level of precincts or wards. This is to make each area into some manageable chunk. In a rural area, these can be HUGE because they are generally divided up into chunks by population.

If you want to get involved by canvassing, you may want to become a precinct worker, which means you become part of a team (if you're lucky and there are other folks in your 'hood) who goes out and knocks on doors of your neighbors. This is incredibly important work. one study found that nearly fifteen percent more folks voted when personally canvassed. No other political action (phone bank, direct mail, media appeals) can match this.

Does the idea of canvassing make you cringe? Well, if you can...GET OVER IT. Would MLK have cringed and given up? So don't you, either. Respect the worth and dignity of the person who greets you at the door! Most of them will be nice -- some really happy to see you! -- and very few will slam the door in your face.

We spend a lot of time talking about this stuff, and very little time really working on it.

But if you are really shy and just can't do it, find something else to do. Most of us are talented folks. You may have skills at organizing events, legal issues, nonprofit administration, fundraising, or any number of things that you may even have learned at church. The Democrats can use all of them.

Don't take no for an answer. And don't say yes too often and burn yourself out.

Now go get 'em!

Register as a Democrat

Not registered to vote? Then register. Not registered as a Democrat? Change your party registration. You can work for a campaign as an independent, but you can't get certain information (such as voter lists) from your local party office unless you are a registered Democrat.

Want to find out how?

Find out here>

Saturday, May 15, 2004

Why I am no longer an independent

Most of my adult life I've voted Democrat, but much of that time I've been a registered independent. Heck, when I was in Chapel Hill, I was registered as a Republican so I could vote against Jesse Helms twice.

But this year has been different. First, about a year ago, I got involved in the Dean campaign here in Portland, Oregon. Then I got involved in the Democratic Party of Multnomah County (basically, Portland).

Now, many of you may imagine that a county political party is a closed set -- and in a few places, maybe it is. But most places I've lived, the county Democrats are nearly indistinguishable from any enthusiastic nonprofit, at the grassroots level.

There are no fat white guys chomping cigars in smoke-filled back rooms here. There are a bunch of overworked volunteers wishing that the nation didn't think that there was something inherently ikky about political work.

Of course, most of us think that because there is. Face it, if you want to save the rainforest, it's ALWAYS going to be easier to make that issue black and white. The rainforest will hardly ever talk back. It will not get on TV and show that it's motivations don't match yours, that it's grammar is poor, that it's smearing the cattlemen and the slash and burn farmers, or that it has poor hygiene.

Candidates will always disappoint you. But that's only because you can imagine that issues are clean and neat.

Let me tell you, it's time to GET OVER IT.

Do you want to see another four years of Bush in office? No? Then consider that if you don't want peace and foreign relations and environmental policy and jobs to get totally flushed down the tubes, you need to work for Kerry.