Politics
Entries related to things political.
Honk for Peace
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 06/29/2007 - 11:12In my more cynical moments, I wonder how much difference it really makes to stand by the side of the road holding out a sign advocating peace, or honking as I drive by similar demonstrator. I wonder how much difference all the time and effort that Kim and I, and so many of our friends put in on Ned Lamont’s campaign. I wonder how Ned feels about all the time and effort he put in.
Then, I remember Robert Kennedy’s famous quote:
Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope... and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance
That sort of sums up my reaction to Corey Boutilier’s documentary ‘Honk for Peace’ which Kim and I saw a rough cut of last night.
The film starts off with footage of various demonstrations in New York City. It has clips from various people that had been working for peace long before Ned entered the U.S. Senate race. It focuses primarily on the anti-war component of Ned’s message. During the campaign, one of our goals was to get people to recognize other parts of Ned’s message besides the anti-war part, but since that is what most people focused on, it ended up being perhaps one of the most important parts of his legacy.
The film also explores some of the important aspects of campaigns that people too often overlook. We all show up at rallies for candidates that we support, but we rarely think about the importance of all the work done to set up the rally, whether it is making sure that the banners are up, the seats are set, the press knows where to go, or simply that the right songs are playing. It comes back to the theme of ‘Honk for Peace’. Each of us does what we can to bring a message of peace, each of our actions adds another ripple of hope, and it great to see some of the behind the scenes people get recognized for the work they did.
Corey has just started showing around parts of the documentary and gathering feedback. He hopes to have the film out at one festival or another, perhaps as early as this fall. I sure hope so. I think it is an important film that all of us who will be working for peace in the 2008 elections need to see.
All-American Presidential Forums on PBS
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 06/28/2007 - 08:30Yesterday, I received two interesting tidbits about the All-American Presidential Forums on PBS that will be happening this evening. The first was in a discussion with Robert Cox of the Media Bloggers Association (MBA). It was through the MBA that I received credentials for the Libby Trial. This time, they are working with PBS to credential bloggers to cover the Presidential Forums.
I have mixed feelings about credentialing processes. Too often they can be used to re-enforce a status-quo of who’s in and who’s out. MBA has done a great job of bringing in some of the bloggers that I consider some of the great under-recognized bloggers.
Faye Anderson will be blogging at Anderson@Large. I believe I first met Faye at the Media Giraffe summit back in 2006. She is a bright and engaging blogger, whom I’m pleased to see will be speaking at BlogHer at the end of July.
Another great blogger from New York City that will be there is Liza Sabater. Liza writes at culturekitchen, and The Daily Gotham. It seems like I run into at Liza at every blogging event, and she is always bringing up important questions. I really look forward to her coverage of the forums.
Terrance Heath, of the The Republic of T. is going to be there. I first met Terrance through the Progressive Bloggers Alliance and we were on a panel together in DC a few years ago. I haven’t seen him in a few years, but I still enjoy reading his blog.
Then, there are bloggers that I learned about through MBA. La Shawn Barber and I were supposed to be covering the Libby trial at the same time, and I started reading her blog because of this. We do not agree politically, and despite putting in lines like “Liberals are such crybabies”, she usually writes pretty insightful material.
I think I first stumbled across Kim Pearson through MBA. However, she writes so many interesting things, I may well have first read her writing about Second Life, some sort of media reform activities or something else. I’m glad she’ll be blogging the Presidential forum and I’m also glad to see that, like Faye, she will be speaking at BlogHer.
Another blogger that I really enjoy reading that will be part of the credentialed bloggers is Pam Spaulding. I’ve never met Pam, but I really enjoy reading Pam’s House Blend.
There are several other bloggers that I’ve read here and there but don’t really know or follow. I look finding out more about them. In many ways, I think I might be more interested in hearing from the bloggers who are credentialed than from the candidates themselves. MBA has set up this page to aggregate the feeds of these bloggers. It looks like a page worth watching.
If that is not enough, Michael Forbes Wilcox writes that Governor Deval Patrick will appear in the televised presidential debate. It was Michael and his friend Lori that first introduced me to Gov. Patrick and I echo Gov. Dean’s comment about Gov. Patrick, "Governor Patrick is a rising star in the Democratic Party and an outstanding example of the strong leadership vision and values that our party offers to American people."
While I didn’t think much of Wolf Blitzer hogging the spotlight at the debates in New Hampshire, I do hope that we see a lot of Gov. Patrick during the forums.
So, I’m excited about the forums. I’m excited to see Gov. Patrick. I’m excited to what the bloggers will say. I’m even hopefully that the candidates will have something interesting to say.
Helping the voiceless find their voice
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 06/26/2007 - 07:36Yesterday, my daughter brought in the mail. It included a package from the Edwards campaign, a kit for hosting our house party on Wednesday. My wife and I looked at the package with a sense of excitement and nostalgia. Four years ago, we hosted house parties for Gov. Dean’s Presidential campaign. Now, we are doing it for Sen. Edwards.
For those of you who don’t know what a house party is, it is really very simply. You have a bunch of your friends over to your house, let them know why you are supporting a specific candidate and encourage them to contribute to that candidate. In short, it is a simple fundraiser.
I remember when we first talked about hosting a house party. It reflected a profound change in the way we understood politics. Back then, I thought of politics as a game for the rich and well connected. There is no way that regular person like I could host a Presidential Fundraiser.
Well, campaigns have changed. Some of it is due to the Internet and the ability of people to contribute online. Some of it is due to candidates that understand that democracy isn’t a spectator sport, reserved for the rich and well connected.
No, today, we can all be much more involved. We can work together to help change our country. My wife and I learned that from Gov. Dean and so now we’re hosting a house party for John Edwards because we believe that he is the candidate that is doing the most to help the voiceless find their voice, whether it be helping bringing his voice to calling for an end of the war in Iraq, getting people to focus on the needs of the poor, in New Orleans, the whole gulf coast, across our country and across our world, or in many other ways.
If you want to find your voice in the political dialog, if you want to help others find their voice, please attend a house party Wednesday night. If you’re in Stamford, CT, please come to ours. Otherwise, find one near where you live, or host your own.
It is a wonderful feeling to realize how much difference we all can have.
(Cross posted at John Edwards' blog)
The Farmer’s Market
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 06/23/2007 - 15:43This morning, Kim, Fiona and I went over to a local farmers market. We had signed up with a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm. For the next eighteen weeks, we will stop by every Saturday and pick up a box of locally grown fruits and vegetables.
It was a beautiful day. We picked up our box of produce, and then supplemented it with some other food. One farmer was selling fresh picked peas and we bought some of them and some strawberries. We then sat down underneath a tree and shelled and ate some of the peas and ate a few of the strawberries.
I told Fiona of picking peas when I was a kid. We had plenty of pea plants and would spend the early morning picking peas and spend the late morning shelling them. My mother would then freeze them for the winter. If we were lucky, we would get to go swimming in the afternoon.
Fiona said hello to everyone that showed up with a dog and asked if she could pat the dogs. She stopped by and patted a goat and Kim picked up some ribs from a farm in Northern Connecticut. It was pretty close to an idyllic Saturday morning.
For me, this gets to the sort of sacrifices that we need to make in order to live a more sustainable life style. Instead of eating frozen peas grown in Renville, MN and shipped 1,300 miles, not including stops for processing, we ate fresh peas that had probably been picked this morning in Middlebury, CT before their 50-mile trip to the farmers market.
The ribs we will eat this evening will have traveled about as far, coming down from Ox Hollow Farm in Roxbury. However, the ribs may have traveled further than that. Doing a lookup on Ox Hollow Farm, I see that they show some of their livestock at the BigE. Who knows, perhaps I met the pig I am about to eat part of last fall.
Yes, it does take a little more time. It takes time to go to the farmers market with the family. It takes time to shell and enjoy the peas, yet it is time well spent. If you want to deal with climate change, the problems of factory farms, how farm workers are treated, and a myriad of other concerns, a good starting point is your local farmer’s market. Then, a good follow up is getting a few friends to go as well.
Edwards, Poverty and the New York Times
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 06/22/2007 - 19:40Well, it has been an interesting day. My diary over at DailyKos which I cross posted here got picked up by Huffington Post. Others have been writing great stuff about this as well, in particular, Greg Sargent has this great post about the Times article.
Some folks have suggested to me that I write to the public editor of the New York Times about the article. I have sent my letter to him, which I am including below the fold.
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