Hi all! I thought it might be fun to try out the blogging world, and see if I can put some of my news reading time to good use. Ideally, I am hoping this forum can be used for three things:
1) Be a news source for those who don't have hours to search the papers or the cyberpapers for those juicy nuggets, and distill the real stories and narratives from all the fluff out there in the corporate media. The corporate "mainstream" media falls short in many ways, the most egregious being its inability/unwillingness to check the factual accuracy of statements and claims by those in power, and its utter failure to establish context within a historical and cultural framework. I will attempt to compensate for these shortcomings with analysis of important news I come across. Anyone else is free to contribute to this effort if they so choose.
2) Act as an informal policy incubator, where open and honest discussion leads to concrete policy solutions. We are stuck in an age of partisan squabble, and much of this partisanship re-enacts the battles of generations past. It is time to move on. The American people, and especially Northeastern liberals like most of the expected readers of this blog, are ready for fresh ideas. Some of us are ready to create and discuss fresh ideas, some have one or two particular issues in which they feel able to contribute to this effort, and others would like to work toward getting them enacted (undoubtedly the most important variable in the equation).
That leads us to the final purpose of this blog: action alerts. I assume anyone who is reading this is either furious at the state of our nation's political landscape or just wants to learn and help however they can. Maybe both. Well I hope to provide ways for folks like yourselves to take action in a productive manner. The time for complaining and discussion is over. We need to act, and we can. We can call and write our representatives, talk to our friends and family, volunteer in local elections and community actions, and most importantly, vote. They say democracy is not a spectator sport, but there are too many mere spectators when the stakes are higher than anytime I am aware of. If I can activate even one member of the populace to stand up for his or her values in full force, this blog will have been worth it.
