It’s now the day after + 7 days. The shock of the election needs to be over and we need to start the battle to regain our country. Simple right? Well it is a daunting task, with only two years to gain an strong foot hold on the future.
Yes two years. In 2018 we need to retake the state legislatures of at minimum 2 states and hold all the states that are currently democratic. We need to capture as many school boards as possible and keep all the democratic e states congress people currently in office. Sounds undoable? So was stopping the advance of our enemies in WW2. But we as a nation did it and we can do it now.
The first step is to show up at your local party district meeting and become a PCO (Precinct Committee Officer.) this is a commitment to be the spokesman in your neighbor hood to keep your neighbors informed on what your local and to a degree your elected officials are doing for them.
There are a great number of off year elections coming up. School board, Hospital boards, Port commissions ETC. Run for an office, these are often the entry office for a higher office. There might be local or city offices open every state is different. But run.
This covers local election, what about the national elections or more importantly how to inform and educate the people? There is no media outlet that gives or tries to deliver any programming in the public interest. Including NPR or PBS. In reality the media is equal to artillery in a battle and as progressives we have none.
The prospects of getting our message the same airtime as the Republicans have is very slim. At best the only news that will be passed on will be to paint progressives in a bad or whinny light.
With the upcoming merger of AT&T and Time Warner will further stifle our freedom of the press. While competition is crucial for a free and open society these mergers and acquisitions is chocking democracy.
What are the solutions to this lack of a free press?
Well I have an idea but I seem to be having a little trouble putting is in to written word. What is needed is to start with the forming of a collation of progressive organizations in to a cohesive front on delivering the progressive message. That would mean compromise across all groups.
I’m not sure of the exact number of groups But I would put it in the thousands. To have everyone on the same basic page working to accomplish the same goal by 2018 and to carry the momentum that will be created through the next 10 elections is a necessity.
The tough part will be the money require to do this. Yes, money, money to buy equally in the press, to buy access to social medias, to take the fight to the people. We need to buy artillery.
In today’s reality it could take billions of dollars to accomplish that. So how do you put it into words that say we need to own a network, or a cable system, to have an interest in what a social media presents information to its subscribers? We need to have the ability to get our message to the middle class, to the people, to the electorate.
We can’t rely on the press, or buying advertising. We will not have the Supreme Court on our side. Citizen United will not be applied to us because we are not the wealthy.
And the media is not main stream, not liberal, not free. We need to break that control of the media by the wealthy and it starts with participating at the local level. It starts with getting involved. As Thom Hartmann says “democracy is not a spectator sport…” we need to get involved. See you at the next democratic district meeting.