Unity08. A people's movement to take our country back.

Pork, ethics, and campaign reform are symptoms of an underlying disease called "insecurity". When people are insecure, they resort to ruses, hence the problems with campaign financing, ethics, and of course the proverbial pork (just look at what got tacked onto the Pension Protection Act in August, for a porky sample -- it's at the back of the Conference Committee Report).

So it's a two-sided deal: we need to BE INTERESTED and ASK for more sophisticated answers. The politicos will be surprised, and maybe will give us better answers. It's like school or church: if you treat your pastor/teacher/imam as a dufus, s/he'll act like one. Conversely, if we treat these our political leaders as if they know something, and we EXPECT a complex answer, they will feel more secure and hence less inclined to resort to ruses. Just like we would.

Our main clearinghouse was a yahoogroup, and I can tell you that almost every legislator was lurking on the list.

Much of what happens on the net is person to person through email list groups.

There is great power in them. Content is created all over, and maybe some content needs to be created for our stuff too, but the real motivated convincing of folks happens in the commentary that goes nack and forth on an email list.

smhiott: Your ideas sound good to me. I can't be of much help my computer knowledge is limited.

A Sooner Independent

I sample media daily the following way:
1) I listen to right wing radio on my short drive to work.
2) I read the New York Time's local sister paper.
3) I listen to Jay Leno's monolog.

In most cases, all three give (different) opinions on the same topic/story each day. Amazing eh?

Keely, you asked what the issue was. See PAcleansweep.com for more info.

MVF
Maybe we could encourage some of the other outfits that are out there that track and have a agenda on each one of the big three. Possible action might be them furnishing us with the needed info and us setting up some kind of clearing house, publicizing, email programs, guest blogs or others that might advance both of our causes. We still need massive media exposure also. The more people and groups that work together the better. Any suggestions?

GEA, who started the grassroots campaign? What was the the catalyst? Would it take some digging? Was there support from the other party, or was it a bipartisan ousting?

I'm curious because there are plenty of people here (in my state) that could use some shaking up, but its getting the ball rolling that is difficult - we've got some serious partisanship here, and there would be a fight for sure.

This may sound crazy, but I think that people like Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert of Comedy Central fame, are good examples for getting these topics to the public. Granted the audience that is reached by these two are limited, but they serve up the truth with a dose of ironic comedy that leaves people thinking. I also find them to be gutsy enough to stick their necks out - witness the White house press corp dinner. They seem to catch the eye of "mainstream media" as well. I think they have wide appeal and that people are interested in what they say. If Unity08 were able to promote itself in this fashion, with humor, some humility and guts, we could I hope reach a wide audience in these initial stages.

In PA we just had a revolution of sorts started at the grass roots level. It was astounding. 25% of our legislature is new, and that simply never happens here. We defeated the retention election of a supreme court judge. I heard that this was the first time in like 200 years for that.

The media jumped on board in a major way, but it was a hot topic with the public, so it sold papers and got viewers. Even now, outgoing legislators are blaming the Media for their ouster, but the truth is the media only does what sells to the public. It was the arrogance of the incumbants that brought them down.

The galvanizing topic here was a pay raise, but it morphed into something much bigger. Once you have the public's attention, they stay tuned and the story/movement gets bigger.

The thing is that you have to find a galvanizing topic, any one of the three above could be that topic, but they are complex. Maybe the pork thing is the most obvious, because its about "giving our money away." That sort of thing strikes a chord with the common man.

However the ethics thing is the most newsworthy, simply because we are a nation of rubber neckers looking at car wrecks. We would have to lead with scumbag ethics and follow up with pork and campaigns, which are directly associated with ethics.

In some cases the media I think has conspired with special interests to make something interesting over time, but they prefer the easy route to show us what we want to see.

smhiott: I couldn't agree more. It would be nice if the press could be prodded into investigating these three items on a regular basis beginning yesterday.
If they could not be influenced to accept this responsibility, maybe unity could create some type of mechanism that would bring these items into the spotlight on a regular basis. Again good points, if unity 08 does not succeed or some other third party we are in for a tough time.

A Sooner Independent