Activism Across America

I really like the idea of the Texas Media Empowerment Project. It purports to be “fighting for a fair media system”, “advocating for social justice”, “collaborating with communities”, and so on.

Here’s the thing: Although the Texas Media Empowerment Project has a well-designed web site with lots of pretty graphic elements, and there are photographs of a “benefit” social gathering with really groovy music in 2005 and of a “media producer training” in 2006, there isn’t anything on the web site to actually do to empower any media, in Texas or anywhere else.

The “Services” and “Action” sections, where there would presumably be some kind of activist resources to enable people to build empowered media, are empty. “Coming soon…”, they read. Coming soon since 2005?

Here’s the lesson I learned as a member of the Constructive Interference Collective in Memphis, Tennessee back in the 1990s: Talking about media empowerment doesn’t empower anybody. Having really groovy music is nice, but it doesn’t empower anyone either. Creating media, and using it for a social purpose, is empowering.

Seeing people complain that the media system in the USA is unfair, when those same people are not using the media opportunities that are always available to them, makes me skeptical of what those people have to say. It’s not that I don’t believe that there are injustices being done by the FCC, or that there are problems with the dominance of corporate media. Rather, I’m suspicious of people who passively complain about media problems without actually doing anything about it. Their complaints have little more substance than the whining of people who wish that there was something to watch on TV.

Media empowerment is actually accomplished in 5 very simple steps.

1. Turn off the media that seems corrupted and unjust to you. No, don’t look at it and complain about it. Just turn it off.
2. Make your own media.
3. Make your own media.
4. Make your own media.
5. Make your own media.

If the Texas Media Empowerment Project really wants to empower media for others, then it needs to start with itself. Use the web site, guys. Turn it on. Give it the power.

Once upon a time at our progressive directory of South Dakota, we linked to a group of active and interesting people who called themselves South Dakota Radicals. Radicals in South Dakota - imagine that!

Well, you’ll have to imagine that, because those South Dakota Radicals have up and quit. Now, the sdradicals.org web site gives me the following not-very-radical message:

Panasonic SDR-H18 $729.94
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I’ll repeat what I’ve said before. It’s really disheartening to see the number of good progressive web sites that have gone under in the last couple of years.

If you’re going to get a web site, hang on to it, even if you can’t keep it current as much as you’d like to. You may want to use it again, or other people may find it useful.

Don’t let the cybersquatters take over your idealism, as happened to the South Dakota Radicals, now marketing spam.

In the wake of his vote for the FISA Amendments Act, Senator Mark Pryor has been targeted by progressives for removal from the United States Senate in 2008.

The FISA Amendments Act allows George W. Bush to conduct electronic spying operations against the American people with no restraint. Here’s what the law does:

Today in the United States Senate, there was a series of votes on the FISA Amendments Act. The law has a boring name that seems very technical, but the effect of the law is easy to understand, and not at all boring.

This law will allow the White House to spy on American citizens’ electronic communications without any restraint.

Does that have your attention? Good. This is important… unless you think that having your emails, telephone calls and Internet use spied on by the FBI is just fine and dandy.

West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller is a Democrat in name, but he votes along with the Republicans on important issues much more than he votes with the Democrats. On the important issue of protecting Americans from the abuse of big government spies, Rockefeller stands with George W. Bush - on the side of Big Brother against you.

On almost every single vote today, Senator Rockefeller voted to help George W. Bush spy against your email, listen to your cell phone calls, and watch you on the world wide web - and to conduct this spying without any justification or oversight. This new Republican law that Rockefeller supports prohibits Congress from exercising oversight to prevent abuses, and allows the FBI and Director of National Intelligence to go spy against Americans without having to even make a claim that the targeted Americans are suspected of a crime. If this law passes, the President will be able to order his government to spy on you just because they don’t like you - and no one will be able to stop them.

Barack Obama was there today in the Senate. Obama stood strong and firm against the abusive FISA Amendments Act spying regime. John McCain voted in favor of Big Brother government spying against Americans.

Where did Senator John Rockefeller come down? Senator Rockefeller betrayed all freedom-loving Americans. He voted against Obama. Rockefeller voted with John McCain and George W. Bush.

Senator Rockefeller, over and over again today, voted to unleash the electronic spies of the government against you. Rockefeller betrayed us.

Senator Rockefeller is being challenged by two Democrats for the Senate nomination this year. West Virginians, please give them your support. Senator Rockefeller deserves the support of the West Virginia Democrats no longer.

I’m updating the Virginia progressive directory today, and finding myself dismayed at the dramatic winnowing of the progressive Virginia blogosphere. Out of the list of 25 progressive Virginia blogs I assembled a couple of years ago, I find that only eight are still active on a regular basis.

I’ll be spending the rest of the morning seeking out new progressive blogs focusing on Virginia politics, but I don’t expect to find 17 to make up the difference in the directory. That’s sad, given that state and local bloggers can provide a level of detail on news stories that national news organizations, and even local newspapers, rarely give. Such blogs are also excellent centers of online political organization.

Having someone from one of the gigantic, corporate-sponsored blogs, like DailyKos or the Huffington Post, write about Virginia politics is no replacement for truly independent voices. If you know of a worthwhile progressive Virginia blog that ought to be included in the Virginia progressive directory, please leave a comment here to let me know about it.

Alert to Maine progressives: The Maine Progressive Caucus is on the verge of disappearing from the Internet. The old web site of the Maine Progressive Caucus, at mainecaucus.net, is no longer to be found at all, and the newer web site, at maineprogressive.org, is about to go under too.

The web site expired on January 20, and is now hosting ads for jobs in Maine. Soon, if the Maine Progressive Caucus doesn’t get a move on, the site will be selling credit cards, pharmaceuticals, and shady business deals.

If you know someone with the Maine Progressive Caucus, please get in touch with them to let them know what’s going on. If you’re from the Maine Progressive Caucus yourself, and you need a helping hand with the site, leave a message here in the comment section. Tell me how to get in touch with you, and I’ll see what I can do to help out.

Super Tuesday was really super this year, with 22 separate state primaries and caucuses - many by more than one political party. Still, super sometimes got felt kind of overwhelming, as it was very difficult to keep up with the results of each state’s competition, once they all got moving later into the evening.

A more realistic sort of excitement will be available to us this Saturday, which won’t be super, but it sure will be swell. Let’s call them the Swell Saturday primaries. Four states will have primaries or caucuses this Saturday. The primaries will be in Louisiana, for Democrats and Republicans alike. Republican caucuses will be held across Kansas, where Barack Obama won handily over Hillary Clinton on Tuesday. Democratic caucuses will take place in Nebraska. The state of Washington will have caucuses for Democrats and Republicans.

If you’ve got the attention span to last beyond the super glitz of Super Tuesday, Swell Saturday may well be worth your time. Tune in, America.

Darwin Day used to be a minor holiday, but in recent years, its celebration has spread dramatically, not just in the United States, but around the world. The following are just the public Darwin Day celebrations taking place this year in Wisconsin (and this doesn’t include all of them - though Darwin Day officially falls on February 12, many people celebrate Darwin Day in events before and after that date).

Wisconsin Society of Science Teachers Darwin Day Celebration
February 9
7:00 PM - Keynote presentations and discussions by Lawrence University professors
8:30 - Showing of “Flock of Dodos”
10:00 - Social to follow
Lawrence University, Youngchild Hall, Appleton, WI
Contact: Brian Bartel, president07@wsst.org

Freedom High School Evolutionary Biology Poster Session
February 12, 3:15 PM
Freedom High School, N4021 Cty Road E and Hwy 55, Freedom, WI
Sponsor: Freedom High School Science Dept.
Contact: John Dobyns, jdobyns@freedomschools.k12.wi.us, 920 788-7940

Darwin Day Videos
February 12, Noon
University of Wisconsin-Marinette, 750 Bay Shore Street, Marinette, WI
Sponsor: Department of Biological Sciences
Contact: Dr. Wendel Johnson, wendel.johnson@uwc.edu, 715-735-4326

UWM Darwin Day Celebration
February 7, 7:00 PM
Talk by Martha Heil, media relations specialist with American Institute of Physics
Room 250 Lapham Hall, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 3209 N Maryland Ave, Milwaukee, WI
Sponsor: UWM BIOSCIENCES and SWiFT
Contact: Andrew Petto, ajpetto@uwm.edu, 414-229-6784

FreeThought Society of Wisconsin Darwin Day Gathering
February 12
Milwaukee, WI
For more information, contact Glenn Curry, glenn@freethoughtsocietyofwisconsin.org

World’s Largest Edible Tree of Life
UW-Whitewater 10th Annual DARWIN DAY
February 12, 6:45 PM
Upham Hall, University of WIsconsin-Whitewater, 800 W. Main St., Whitewater, WI
Sponsor: College of Letters and Sciences, UWW, BBB Biology Honors Society
Contact: Jeff McKinnon, mckinnoj@uww.edu, 262-472-6200

Results from the West Virginia Republican presidential caucuses are in and it looks like yucky Mike Huckabee is the victor. Yes, THE victor - the only one, because the way that the Republican Party works is that winner takes all, and minority opinions count for zilch.

Amongst the zilch of the West Virginia Republican caucuses is Ron Paul, whose supporters have been feeling an increasing intensity of angst, after Ron Paul’s predictions of a “grand showing” in the Maine Republican caucuses never came to pass.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult for Ron Paul’s supporters to maintain their belief that Ron Paul has begun a revolution that is, somehow, unstoppable.

Perhaps it was the associations with white supremacy. Perhaps it was Ron Paul’s refusal to accept the responsibility of government to provide for the “general welfare” of the American people. Somewhere along the way, the Ron Paul magic was revealed as little more than a collection of glittery dried leaves.

Is West Virginia the last stop? No, the Ron Paul train stopped a long time ago.

It was the kind of Superbowl party I love to see. John McCain thought that his Democratic-turncoat ally Joseph Lieberman could lead him into a cushy campaign stop in Connecticut, but the Connecticut Citizen Action Group showed them something different.

Protesters from the group confronted John McCain and his supporters with some pesky facts about the economy and the ongoing occupation in Iraq. By voting in favor of rushing to war in Iraq, Senator John McCain managed to provide poor leadership for the military and economy all at once. McCain pushed American soldiers into a deathtrap without any time for planning, and he threw hundreds of billions of American dollars out the window, often without any idea where that money would go.

It’s like John Murphy of Connecticut Opposes The War said at the protest: “Connecticut and the rest of the American public are strongly opposed to the McCain, Lieberman, Shays, Bush war in Iraq… The looming recession proves that we can’t afford to continue their shopping sprees in Baghdad while ignoring pressing needs like health care here at home.”

After that massive failure, John McCain thinks he’s qualified to be President? The Connecticut Citizen Action Group says no. Thanks to them for showing up to state an obvious truth, and to remind John McCain that America refuses to fall for his political shell game. We’ve been watching his hands.