alternative hippopotamus

I’ve been listening to recordings I made at Take Back America last month, and I came across the panel called “Taking Back the Media”. The overall recording quality is pretty good, and perfectly suitable for podcasting. It’s hard to break up into smaller chunks, as it’s regrettably necessary to do for a podcast, as the panel forms a coherent whole.

Meanwhile I learn that Julie Bergman Sender, who was on the TBA Media panel, will be presenting at a lunch meeting at the New Politics Institute, which appears to be a spin-off of New Democrats Network. Here’s the blurb:

Learn about paid search advertising, viral video, blogs, mobile phone media and more. Presenters include Jerome Armstrong, Google Executive Jim Lecinski, Simon Rosenberg and many others. Registration is free, so don’t miss this opportunity to understand the powerful new tools and media that are transforming politics. The lunch is on July 20th from 12:00pm to 2:00pm at the Phoenix Hotel, 520 North Capitol Street NW, Washington, DC.

Which brings me to my point: while it may be true that no one has gone broke by underestimating the intelligence of the average TV viewer, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an intelligent audience waiting for their due. The form may not be that of the traditional media, i.e., radio or television. It may be live-streaming over the internet, audio and video podcasting or through DVD distribution (the advent of indie DVD clubs is a topic unto itself).

Take aclu.tv for example, which offers live-streamed progressive video. I got to their site from linktv, which offers live-streamed progressive general programming.

I watched several of the aclu.tv docs, my favorite being the “Religious Freedom” short. You know, this is pretty good “tv”. I had to ask myself if I’d choose this over what I would consider the best on cable (e.g., Frontline, the Daily Show, NOW, Real Time with Bill Maher) and I’d say: “Maybe not, yet. But it’s close enough you can taste it.”

Note: light blogging over the next few days. I’m nursing an ailing back today, and am heading off to an undisclosed bunker Monday and Tuesday.

Update: I found a relevent excerpt from my recording of the “Taking Back the Media” panel featuring Cenk Uygur, co-host of The Young Turks on Sirius Satellite Radio. This set the theme for the panel, which briefly put is: just do it. It’s worth listening to. As far as distribution goes, this is my own recording, and I just ask that you reference blog.althippo.com if you want to use the clip.

Here’s the mp3.

This is a verbatim transcript of a presentation by Kevin Phillips at the Take Back America Conference, June 14, 2006. I thought his remarks were sufficiently provocative, and fundamental to the theme of what’s gone off track in the United States, to transcribe them as a whole. To the best of my knowledge, there is no other source available for a transcript of these remarks.

When the audio recording was unintelligible, or when audience reaction prevented accurate rendering, the following shows ellipsis marks, i.e., […].

It’s a pleasure to be here. I thought I’d really try to avoid politics. […] a very non-partisan, bi-partisan negative sentiment.But I will venture one, one little… I worked for a fairly well-known Republican politician whose father was a labor organizer in Ohio. Who signed into law a bill setting a lower federal income tax rate, on earned income and unearned income whose renominating convention criticized multinational corporations moving jobs out of the United States. Of course, his name was Richard Nixon. Probably not the favorite of this group.

However you can see when I say that there’s a major, major element of people who vote Republican who’re waiting for a message. They don’t usually hear elite Democrats, they don’t usually hear elite Republicans, but if somebody starts talking in some of the terms that… Sarah was mentioning the ten poorest counties in Ohio, who voted for George W, I presume that was the thrust. And, it’s an interesting thing because there you’ve got a Republican vote that tells you where the potential supporting voters are. And, it’s not the analysis you get out of the elite media at all, it’s not where they try to discriminate from. They don’t suggest the swing issues, or any of the issues that are going to be discussed here.

So, but I think that’s absolutely wrong.
(more…)

I saw Barbara O’Brien’s post about the Take Back America conference, and wanted to offer my own thoughts.

On Monday night I had the chance to hang out a bit with Barbara, Taylor Marsh, Glenn Greenwald, Jennifer Nix of Working Assets, and the always delightful Roxanne Cooper. This was one of the reasons I was there at the conference. To meet people with whose writing I had found a certain sympatico. To witness a meeting of the minds.

I gather from Barbara’s post, that she found Take Back America dissappointing when compared with Yearly Kos. Well, of course there was a good reason that Yearly Kos was scheduled days ahead of TBA. I’ve spent enough time in showbiz to know when someone’s being upstaged. And, that is going to steal some energy from the later conference. That’s showbiz, folks.

One of her points is that TBA was not as blog-centric as YK. True, enough. Bloggers were not the stars of the show, by any means. Which motivates the question: who or what was the star of the show for TBA? What was it about? There’s not a short answer to that, and I hope you bear with me as I review recordings and notes I made over the last week.

While I didn’t go to Yearly Kos, I did go to Silver Docs, the documentary film festival held this week at the AFI. There are some bloggers I’ve met who have feet in both worlds, and may have a take similar to mine: bloggers are to the main stream media what indie film makers are to the Hollywood system. They are there to challenge it, make it more accountable to the public, and to define the bleeding edge.

I think bloggers and indie film makers would find there is a commonality of view between the two communities. While the bloggers who were at TBA knew that they were an essential part of taking back America, the film makers at Silver Docs knew they are essential to taking back the visual arts.

Challenging the system does not necessarily make for overnight success, however. Anyone who seeks fundamental change must have the patience of a tortoise. Or, more to the point, the patience of a blogger or indie filmmaker.

Let me offer an example. At Silver Docs last night, I saw a beautifully filmed documentary about the life of a beaurocrat/businesswoman turned sheep farmer living on her own island in Scandanavia. Both the filmmaker and the star of the documentary were there last night, and they discussed the process of making the film. The filmmaker met the star when she turned 50, and began to wonder what she should do with the rest of her life. She had decided to make the ultimate film about sheep. What she made instead was a wonderful documentary about finding your place in life. Making the film took years, and it’s no exaggeration that lives changed in the process.

My point is that the creative process is a slow one. It’s a process of concept, observation, inspiration, analysis, synthesis, more inspiration, and gut-wrenching dedication to creating a final product.

Since an example is worth a thousand blog posts, I’m starting to document my experiences of the TBA conference with a panel I believe goes to the meat of what taking back America is about: Kevin Phillips comments on the dark side of our economy. More on this soon.

I’ve been posting my impressions from Take Back America. This has been an important conference for me, and a big help in how I want to approach this thing called the blogosphere, or, if you prefer blogtopia (thanks, Skippy!)

For a dissenting view, we go to redstate.com:

A current day attempt to reinvigorate this empty neo-liberalist philosophy is the “Take back America” conference. This propaganda event has been full of the same empty rhetoric, apocryphal statements and political posturing that has become a Democrat Party signature. Combined with overall qualified liberal reaction to the death of Zarqawi, a new Iraqi government and our president’s trip to Iraq, one truly has to question their motivations. To accomplish this, ask yourself some simple questions. Isn’t the meeting of democratically formulated American policy goals good for our country? When positive events are marginalized or portrayed in a disingenuous manner to meet a political agenda, who wins? It is an obvious answer the American public is figuring out; not our country.

I found the phrase “democratically formulated American policy goals” to be intriguing. By intriguing, I mean somewhere between funny in an ironic sense, and delusional. The neocon manifesto Project for a New American Century reflects democratic formulation? Dude, LOL.

This did make me wonder what the right-wing equivalent of Take Back America would be called. I’m guessing: Keeping America for Ourselves.

Whenever I try to digest an experience of a magnitude like this year’s Take Back America conference I try to understand what for me were the key points. I’m not really a big fan of the idea of cyberjournalism as the pursuit of objective reality. If anything, I believe that through the subjective lenses of individual impressions lies the photograph. Objective reality is in a judicious aggregate, obtained by sifting through each observer’s impressions, resolving what at first may appear to be contradictions. That reflects my own life history in the arts, tempered by my work history in the sciences.

That’s not to say that all individual subjective experiences are equal. Take today’s panel with Kevin Phillips. His discussion of the socialism of the financial industry (think the S&L bailout, the government-credit alliance, trade deficits, and budget imbalances) left me with the sense that there is a devil in the details of our economy that has eluded me. It is, if Kevin Phillips is correct, a very dark side of our national psyche.

Yesterday’s blogger panel was inspirational. I’ll have to single out Afronetizen for an honesty, depth, and humor that reminded me of what is so important about the blogosphere: it’s the new blood. Yes, there is great reporting at the Washington Post and New York Times, but there is also something fossilized about their approach. It is too focused on the conventional wisdom, and not enough about revealing the man behind the curtain. The mainstream media still can’t get over the visage of a naked emperor, and so prefers to paint him as clothed.

Every single blogger on the panel was on their best game. From an infotainment perspective, I’d have to rank this at the top of the conference.

The final plenary on Iraq was a high-energy review of where we are now in Iraq, how we can get out of Iraq, and what the issue means for the election. I’ll note here that Tom Mazzie of MoveOn.org discussed the results of a poll that suggested two (almost) contradicting results: a.) talking about Iraq helps Democratic candidates. b.) talking about Iraq makes people less inclined to support a troop withdrawal. Yet, it seems unlikely that a withdrawal will happen under Republican leadership.

These are quick thoughts. I’ve taped the discussions I’ve mentioned. What has a decent audio quality I’ll turn into a podcast, or at least significant excerpts will go into a podcast, or more correctly, a series of podcasts.

During the reception tonight at Take Back America, a certain former ambassador to the Gabon and charge d’affaire during the first Gulf War made friends with everyone who shook his hand.

If you haven’t met him, Joe Wilson has a tendency to be the most charming and gracious guy in the room.

The obvious question was: “What do you think about charges being dropped against Rove?”

Yes, even though it was a pre-dinner reception, and politics should have been off the table, I asked anyway.

His answer: “I’m waiting for Fitzgerald to make a statement.”

Good answer.

I was just watching Rep. John Conyers on a panel titled: Eruptions: Challenging a Lawless President.

During the Q&A a radio show host said that 20 demonstrators, including actress Daryl Hannah were desperately trying to avoid the destruction of a community garden. Here’s the story (AP):

LOS ANGELES - Sheriff’s deputies began evicting people from an urban garden early Tuesday and arrested at least seven as protesters chained themselves to barrels of concrete and others, including actress Daryl Hannah, sat in a large walnut tree.

“I’m very confident this is the morally right thing to do, to take a principled stand in solidarity with the farmers,” Hannah said by cell phone. Asked if she willing to risk arrest, she said, “I’m planning on holding my position.”

About 350 people grow produce and flowers on the 14 acres of privately owned land, in a gritty, inner-city area surrounded by warehouses and train tracks. The garden has been there for decades but the landowner, Ralph Horowitz, now wants to replace it with a warehouse.

Conyers promised to get in touch with his powerful friends on the Hill. It occurred to me in the moment that life should be like this, it should always be possible to approach sympathetic politicians who in turn put the power of their offices to the service of the public good.

My point is, not knowing if this is going to save the community garden or not, Conyers action was what taking back the country is all about.

In other news here at Take Back America Hillary Clinton gets booed. Actually, based on Medea Benjamin’s account on Counterpunch, it’s more complicated than that. Apparently, Code Pink agreed not to protest Clinton’s speech on the condition they could hand out flyers on Clinton’s pro-war position. Come Tuesday morning, they weren’t allowed to hand out flyers. (It’s not clear from Benjamin’s account whether this was a Hilton issue vs. a TBA issue, but I’d expect to see TBA doing their best to make sure the agreement was met.)

Before events overtake me this morning, I want to mention a key point of yesterday’s panel, Taking Back the Media. The panel included Jay Harris (Publisher, Mother Jones), Alexandra Walker (Executive Editor, TomPaine.com), Robert Greenwald (Brave New Films), Jule Bergman Sender (The Cause), Tray Van Slyke (In These Times), Cenk Uygur (The Young Turks), and Roberto Lovato (New American Media).

I taped the panel and will turn excerpts into a podcast.

The key point, in my opinion was when an audience member described an idea he had for a grass roots vide project for his neighborhood in NJ. Robert Greenwald’s response was “Why are you asking us? Do it.”

The point being that progressives suffer from a condition common to the rest of humanity: passivity. It’s not that the conservative movement isn’t passive. They’re just marginally less passive than the progressive movement.

Do it. Greenwald makes it sound so simple. And, perhaps it’s simpler than we often make it out to be.

Greenwald also used the occassion of the conference to announce that he was releasing the organizing tools to enable indie filmmakers to market their stuff. You can get them here.