Nick Lewis: The Blog

Progressives need to push for more federal funding of programs which make broadband more accessable to lower-income and rural residents. If you are wondering why, then take another look at these two maps.

The GOP message machine’s first priority is to prevent information from getting out to the public. For the them, “getting out the message” is a secondary priority; they understand that the majority of Americans would rather watch Donald Trump fire contestants than listen to a commentator explain the finer points of their reactionary agenda. Progressives would be wise to take the average American’s attention span into consideration when developing a media strategy.

The GOP views the mediascape as a battlefield. The Progressives view the mediascape as a debate competition. Whenever we send out an effective attack against the GOP's agenda, within 12 hours an army of pro-GOP radio hosts, television pundits, and columnists will respond with a unified and succinct counter-attack and rebuttle. In the eyes of Americans who are uneducated about how our media works, the unified, coordinated message will always win over any insurgent “alternative” views, no matter how well researched and argued. Its considerations such as those that has allowed the GOP to shift our country’s political views to favor them.

The GOP have a list of every “friendly” media personality in America. They maintain this list down to every rural small time talk radio personality. As hard as it is to believe, such a directory does not exist for the progressives. All we have is a few disconnected “alternative” outlets. We must change this… but we cannot wait for others to do it, and I cannot do it by myself....

Thus I propose we launch a national website called “the little blue book” (the name is up for debate). This website is intended to be built and maintained by an army of grass-roots media activists from around the country. Its goal is simple: to collect names, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers of every pro-blue media personality in the country. Eventually, this network could be used to bring forth a unified message that resonates better with the channel surfing nascar dad. The website would merely be a first step to building a network that will truly take on the GOP’s message machine. So I ask, who’s with me? Who will help me get it started? What other functions could such a network take on?

If you want to know how the conservative message machine was built and what progressives can do to respond, just ask Rob Stein.

By Don Hazen, Alternet [link]

By James A. DewarThe Rand Corporation

We are in the midst of the "Information Age." Pundits have proclaimed it for years; articles in the popular press have plumbed its implications for every imaginable enterprise;[2] businesses are enamored with it; on-line and print magazines are devoted to it; government is wrestling with it, movies have been made about it; people are talking about it--can there be any doubt?

So, where will it all lead and why should we care? And what exactly is the Information Age anyway?

It is my intent in this paper to describe a way to think about what the Information Age is and where it will lead. And, put succinctly, we should all care because that way of thinking suggests the Information Age is likely to have profound effects throughout society—even if the specific effects are hard to see at this point.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. At this point I want to suggest that it is both important and difficult to see where the information age might lead. Important, not least, because gargantuan fortunes are there to be made for those who see the future clearly. Important also, because information is affecting a wide variety of human enterprises in significant ways (businesses are "flattening" and globalizing; people are buying faxes, cell phones and computers; schools are wiring themselves in anticipation; governments are scrambling to handle information age problems, etc.).

Anonymoses Hyperlincoln, Blogollageier

 The 10 Most Underreported Humanitarian Crises of 2004

Via American Samizdat

The Associated Press reports:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Tim Roemer, the only remaining opponent of Howard Dean in the race to be chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Monday he's bowing out of the race -- but he offered a warning to Democrats. Dean, the former presidential candidate and governor of Vermont, is expected to win the DNC chairmanship at the election Feb. 12.

Praise Allah! The Democrats have a true leader!

*Please leave a comment if you know the title of this painting.