This is a positive diary, calling all progressive activists to action. This election matters and you know it. There is no time to be wasted: let's not take victory for granted.
What impresses me the most about Obama's candidacy, is his positive message of hope. His message about changing Washington is not empty talk. He means it and he has already shown it by refusing lobbyist money: there has already been some diaries about some registered lobbyist who were returned their monetary contributions because they were lobbyists.
How do we get this guy elected? How do we contribute to spread his positive message? How do we bypass the main stream media and the punditocracy who are looking for sensationalism and find none in a simple message of hope?
The purpose of this diary is twofold:
- bring the debate in DKos back on stuff that really matters.
- introduce a new tool in our arsenal for taking back the government and the country.
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A positive message
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Obama's message is at its core a very positive one. McCain promised to lead an honourable campaign. Obama is doing it.
Back off: let's drop the smear campaign on the opponent and his VP candidate. The ends do not justify the means lest we become what we are fighting. Let's go back on the issues.
Obama is fighting off lobbyists in favour of the people.
Obama has the only sane foreign policy, based on respectful dialogue with other countries. This is the best and only way to get America safe.
Obama has the best energy policy: bring jobs to America while creating a renewable energy infrastructure.
Obama is pro-life and pro-choice in life, i.e. while leaving women the choice to do what they want with their bodies, he is the best candidate promote sex-ed and contraception to avoid unwanted pregnancies. Unlike the republicans who are pro-life in name only (PLINO), Obama respects all life: that of the poor American people, that of the men and women in uniform, that of the foreign civilian casualties, that of our planet and the ecosystem we so much depend on...
There is so much to say about Obama's positive message. I can't do it alone. Please go on and create videos and write diaries reminding each other of what Obama stands for and not what he stands against
The new web site DVD 4 Hope proposes to spread this positive message.
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Signal to noise ratio
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The internet has one thing in common with the main stream media: the signal to noise ratio is very, very poor. We cannot do much about the MSM, but we are the ones who shape the web.
DVD 4 Hope is designed to increase the signal while keeping noise to a minimum, thus every minute spent on that site should be productive. A feature tracker is used to keep track of what has already been done and what remains to be done. A wiki is used to make sure that each piece of information is always up to date and presented once where it should be. A blog section is provided for convivial discussion and to report on one's actions.
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Talk vs. action
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Dkos itself has a very poor signal to noise ratio. 90% of the diaries are either duplicate, bullshit, non-diaries, smear diaries, etc. The proof is that a "Diary Rescue" front page post is regularly needed to rescue worthy diaries that should have been recc'd but never were, and that were pushed too soon off the recent diary list by unworthy diaries.
Tens of thousands of comments are posted every day. That's many (wo)man-hours! Is this the best way we can use our collective time?
DKos is supposed to be about electing better Democrats. BREAKING: you have a damn good one running for president. Let's use DKos for what it was intended to be. DVD 4 Hope is another tool you can use to achieve the same goal.
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Inspired to inspire others
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I would like to thank some DKos diarists who inspired me to create DVD 4 Hope. I am going to quote from a selection of other diaries. That should be enough to make you understand what I am trying to achieve with your cooperation.
unfiltered news without punditry
There is a lot of complains about AP, Fox news, CNN, etc.
What about Free Speech? Whatever we do, there shall always be some media organization we shall be unhappy about. Sure, you can fight them. But let me tell you about a better way: be part of a narrowcasting network spreading an intelligent and positive debate.
Here is a quote from Kristina40's experiment at work:
I had to work last night but luckily I'm a bartender and have a couple of television sets at my disposal. I was surprised a few people requested that I turn up the volume so we could listen to the speeches. I decided to flip the channel from the cable news channel to cspan. Several of the customers asked me why. I replied
"Because I'd like to process what is said in the speech without someone telling me what I'm supposed to think of it".
One Republican customer commented,
"Wow, I never really thought about it that way."
So began my experiment..
Read the result of her experiment. It is astounding.
Think about it: most American people have never had access to Obama's unfiltered message! They have always been told what to think about him. Let the man talk for himself.
This is where DVD 4 Hope comes in. One of the very first goal of our outreach effort is to create cheap DVDs with the best of Obama's speeches that can be distributed, and used to start a dialogue in your neighbourhood.
We don't need any smear campaign on McCain's VP. Enough already! Do not underestimate the power of our man! See how his speech won glamatron over:
I thought I could only be happy voting for Hillary, but was prepared to vote Obama out of party loyalty and fear of McCain. Tonight, Barack Obama changed my mind.
Okay, I'm in. I get it. I will vote for Barack Obama. Not with hesitation, not with regret, but with the firm desire that he becomes the next President.
I don't quite honestly know if it was the speech he made or the biographic video that came before it, but at some point between the time Dick Durban left the stage and the time Michelle and the kids walked out to greet the guy, I took a great big swallow of the famous Obama kool-aid. Mmmm... tastes like hope.
If you pay enough attention to the diaries that matter, you will notice quite a few similar ones.
The sad thing is: most people haven't had the time to properly digest what Obama said in his acceptance speech. Obama delivered the speech. Now, it is our turn to spread it.
I would like to say a special thank you to the two diarist quoted above, because they are the ones directly responsible for the birth of DVD 4 Hope.
To make the effort meaningful, I need you help. Please join and participate.
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Call for action
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See JulieUnplugged's report on her heroic canvassing effort in Ohio.
At the end, she explains why this is so important:
Confession: I was one of those errant votes last time. I voted for Bush even though I was undecided right until I went into that voting booth. At the last minute, I just didn't have the guts to cast my first democratic vote in two decades for Senator Kerry. He still felt remote from me, all my friends were Republicans, and while I was less happy with Bush than I had ever been, Kerry was an unknown to me.
If someone had knocked on my door, maybe that weekend before, maybe had helped me over some of my hurdles to understand why I should trust Kerry and not fear him, I very likely would have voted differently.
So this is my penance. I will canvas every week on Saturdays in my community until election day. I hope I find at least seven people like me last election - needing that gentle, informational push to make the right choice. That's my goal!
Imagine how much further this canvassing effort would go if each time she or any other canvasser could leave each family with a DVD with the Best Of Obama, a DVD that they could pop into the DVD player on on their computer, giving those people their first unfiltered access to Obama's message.
SanJoseLady's dairy "At work today two women opened my eyes" is a good example of why and how this DVD outreach effort could make a lot of difference.
See the effect of Unfiltered Obama on hard-core republicans.
Just after Barack's AMAZING(!!) speech, my mother, a life-long Republican, got up from the couch and said 'I don't know how I'll vote. I certainly don't love John McCain'.
I nearly fell over.
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Ladies and gentlemen, we have an extraordinary nominee who is changing the landscape. If people like my mother are considering voting Democrat this time...words can't even describe. Senator Obama has put faith in us, and we cannot let him or our country down. There is too much at stake this election. We need to ignore the polls and work as if McCain is constantly up by 12.
With all Due Respect, Kossacks- WAKE THE F%$@! UP!!!!
I used to spend hours everyday on this site. In fact, I was a self-confessed kosaholic. I was away from the site for several weeks though because I just got married and was shocked upon my return to see almost no action-oriented diaries on this site (something that used to be a staple).
And the few action diaries that I have seen lately have gotten almost no attention.
Ohio is still a toss-up. Virginia is still a toss-up. Florida is going to be really tough...and we need to get some of these borderline states to win.
Kossacks if we want a sure win, we have to take action. We MUST reach out to voters on a 1:1 level. That is the only thing that really works. Blogs, emails, etc. are great, but nothing beats 1:1 contact with potential voters.
Voting is personal, and getting votes needs to be personal.
Do everything newyorknewyork says. Add a DVD to the fliers you hand out, and your effort could reach even further.
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Obama's official DVDs
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DVD 4 Hope is a tool to advertise the existence of official Obama DVDs. If you can afford to purchase those and distribute them, you would be helping in two ways:
- by financially supporting the Obama campaign.
- by spreading the message.
I suggest: do not send any more donations to the Obama campaign. Spend all the money you have available for donations on the official DVDs that you can purchase on the Obama web site. This way, not only you support them, but you get something in return to spread the message.
Other than that, we are also going to try to produce some of our own DVD, with a collection of selected speeches and (positive) videos. Thus, the DVD can be burned on your own computer cheaply, and you can distribute more of them.
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What is needed
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To conclude this diary, is is a short laundry list of what we need.
First of all, I would like to recommend this diary, with information to act upon.
Other than that, DVD 4 Hope needs:
- everybody to sign up to show your interest and support.
- anybody who has any kind of technical knowledge about creating our own DVDs on the windows, Mac, Linux platforms.
- anybody who has a DVD burner and who is willing to burn and distribute DVDs.
- anybody who is willing to purchase official Obama's DVDs and distribute them: we are going to do a head count to see how far we can reach.
- anybody who has a video camera and a good microphone, to create our own activists videos, videos created by the people for the people.
- anybody who is good at documenting and organizing stuff on the web site.
- anybody who wants to promote hope.
Being geographically very far away from all of you, I personally very much regret that I cannot do any canvassing or phone banking myself. But from where I live, I will do my best to use my technical expertise to provide you with some more tools to efficiently spread hope.
Use the site's feature tracker to post your wishes about what you would like the site to support. As a web developer, I will do my best to code the proper tools as quickly as possible so that you can work much more efficiently.
I am setting as much time as I can spare aside to work with you for Change in the World.
Blessings to all.