Uncommon Denominator
Uncommon Denominator
The Newsletter of the Commonweal Institute
www.commonwealinstitute.org
"Hope is the pillar that holds up the world." -- Pliny the Elder
CONTENTS
Talking Points: Keeping young progressives energized
Poll-Watch: Conservatives and the mainstream
Wit and Wisdom: The year in words
Check It Out: What does GOP spell?
Quoted! A U.S. marine on the trials of war
Featured Article: From Andersonville to Abu Ghraib
Happenings: Monthly round-up
Endorsements: Nancy Pelosi
Get Involved: Spread the word; become a contributor
TALKING POINTS
"No progressive change," says Bernard Goldberg, "has ever occurred anywhere in the world without the energy and inspiration of young people."
If that is the case, then progressives should take solace in the fact that, in 2004, Americans under 30 voted in record numbers -- over 21 million, that is, surpassing 50 percent turnout for the first time in 12 years. These voters generally supported the more progressive candidates, and gave John Kerry a 2.1 million vote advantage over the conservative policies of President Bush-the only age group that broke for the challenger. (On youth attitudes and involvement in the election, see the press release by The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement [CIRCLE] and CNN's pre-election poll).
Moreover, the last several years have seen a large increase in political activism among the "youth vote." Whether it was waiting in New Hampshire snow to support presidential candidates during the primary season, fanning the battleground states with America Coming Together, or attending anti-war and pro-choice rallies across the country, younger voters supported their candidates and their causes with more than just the ballot. The progressivism of these voters is underscored by their stronger support for progressive causes compared to the general population: 41% support same-sex civil marriages (25% for the general population) and about 60% say "government should do more to solve problems" (compared to 45% for the general population). For the first time in years, the level of cynicism toward government has fallen among young voters (see CIRCLE's Nov. 8 fact sheet).
Yet progressive losses in the 2004 election -- along with the media's framing of the results as a massive defeat -- have left many of these new voters, volunteers, and activists feeling helpless and skeptical of electoral involvement. To channel and maintain the energy and activism of younger voters, progressive groups need to act now to support and develop programs for this crucial constituency. Younger voters are, after all, our source of future progressive activists and politicians.
In sharp contrast to the conservative movement, which has made a priority of recruiting and training future leaders, progressive organizations have more or less left the younger generation, especially college students, to fend for themselves. While more than half of all college students are active in community service of some sort, few of these students have a dedicated infrastructure to help them get involved in the electoral process or policy making. It is this lack of infrastructure that has forced many students to take it upon themselves to create an infrastructure to sustain the current positive energy of college students.
The Stanford Democrats, for example, have reorganized their efforts to include a speaker series to highlight the constructive role that responsible government plays in everyday lives. They are also working with local political groups to encourage and help young progressive candidates run for local offices, including school boards and city councils -- a strategy perfected by ultraconservatives, as evidenced by the recent attacks on evolution and sexual education programs. The group is also planning leadership training courses for students interested in the electoral process.
Other Stanford students have revamped The Stanford Progressive, a monthly campus newspaper promoting progressive policies and views. Even more, students have begun planning for "The Roosevelt Institution," a student-led "think tank" that will take advantage of the significant policy work already being undertaken by students. Stanford is not unique. Progressive students across the country are writing for newspapers, organizing political groups, and encouraging young people to run for local office. One of the biggest challenges these groups face, however, is a lack of resources and public visibility.
Recently, the Center for American Progress has started Campus Progress, a branch that provides funding sources for progressive campus publications as well as helping to organize nationwide speaker series. This group, although limited in resources right now, will both encourage groups already organized and provide a mechanism for new groups to get started. Although the trends in the youth vote and youth activism are favorable for the future of progressive politics, this is a group of people that must be actively engaged and cultivated immediately, while the level of interest is still high. Progressive organizations need to work with the younger generation and allow them the freedom to pursue their own ideas. As Marie Jonas, president of the Stanford Democrats says, "[We need] to feel our contribution is valuable…not merely being written off as cheap labor."
The funding and credibility of established progressive institutions will allow these student groups to attract more prominent speakers, help students obtain important campaign positions, allow for proper training sessions, and give students the flexibility to be successful and contribute on a substantial level. The future of progressive politics is in those under thirty. It's time for progressives to realize this and act accordingly. The future, and near term, of progressive politics depends on it. -- Gilbert Martinez
WIT AND WISDOM
Something can be learned about our society from knowing which words Americans are most curious about. Just what that something is, we leave to you. But, according to Merriam-Webster's online, the following were the most looked-up words of 2004.
1. blog
2. incumbent
3. electoral
4. insurgent
5. hurricane
6. cicada
7. peloton
8. partisan
9. sovereignty
10. defenestration
o. 6 calls to mind worried homeowners and curious school-kids on the East Coast. No. 7 makes a bit more sense in light of the 2004 Tour de France. The others are pretty clear. But what's up with No. 10? Is there something going on out there that we should be aware of?
POLL-WATCH
The Uncommon Denominator is pleased to introduce a new regular section providing information and commentary on major current surveys of public attitudes.
This month, CI Senior Fellow Patrick O'Heffernan finds that, despite the results of the 2004 election, conservative policies and public opinion are actually out of step in some important areas. PollWatch archives are available online.
PollWatch examined the new 2005 Gallup polls (requires subscription) and tested conservative priorities against several key indicators: gay rights and acceptance of gays in American society, the right to choose, the influence of big business in society, and the place of religion in America. In all but one of these -- the role of religion in solving America's problems -- conservatives were out of step with the American people and the trends were against them.
Gays in society (Jan 3-5, 2005): Conservatives -- the Religious Right in particular -- object to the visibility of gays in American society and vehemently condemn what they misleadingly call "the gay lifestyle." However, Americans by 54% to 42% accept gays in society, by 52% to 48% think gay sex should be legal, and by a huge 89% to 8% feel that gays should have the same rights as straights. The trends in each of these indicators has been toward a more gay-friendly position over the past 25 years.
Big business (Jan 3-5, 2005): Conservatives promote a stronger role for big business in both society and the Administration, and they vigorously oppose pro-environmental, pro-worker, and pro-stockholder regulations. However, Americans by 60% to 8% think big business has too much influence in society, and by 65% to 35% sees big business as wielding too much influence on the Bush Administration. A substantial majority -- 58% to 37% -- believe that current regulation of business should be maintained or strengthened. These attitudes have remained relatively constant since 1993, when Gallup began asking this question.
The right to choose (Jan. 3-5, 2005): Conservatives, and especially the Religious Right, are fighting hard to ban abortion at the Federal level, and wage a constant war at the state level to restrict its availability. Americans are divided on abortion, but disagree with the conservatives who want to ban it; 60% want current abortion laws either unchanged or liberalized, while 38% would like to see additional restrictions on abortion. When asked, 52% of Americans identify themselves as pro-choice and 41% as pro-life. Only 19% support a ban on abortion. Given that polls show that between 38% and 41% of Americans self-identify as evangelical Christians, the 19% figure suggests that a majority of evangelicals do not support the religious right's drive to ban all abortions.
Religion in American society and politics (conducted 2004; published Jan. 2005): Conservatives argue for a greater role for religion in society and see nothing wrong with using religion to direct government policy. Here Americans are closer to them than not, but are trending slowly away. The 2004 Gallup Religious Index (RI, a measure of religiosity in America tracked by Gallup for 60 years) found that 59% of Americans believe that religion can solve many or all of America's problems, seemingly a vote of confidence in "faith-based solutions." However, this number is trending downward, having fallen by 3% since 2001. On the question of religion in American life, the RI rose slightly from its historical low of 641 out of 1000 in 2002 to 648, but has stalled there (648 is still high -- most European countries would rank in the 300's- 400's). However, the RI has been falling steadily in America from a high of 746 in 1956. The Barna Group annual survey of religion in America agrees and indicates that the percentage of Americans who are Christian has also fallen. -- Patrick O'Heffernan
CHECK IT OUT
Progressives are not the only ones feeling the heat nowadays. The far right, intolerant as ever yet newly triumphant, is coming down hard on moderate Republicans who don't toe the line. In the past four years, the political body count has risen steadily: Paul O'Neill, Jim Jeffords, Eric Shinseki, and Colin Powell, to name some of the most prominent.
Add to that list Christie Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey and EPA director in the Bush Administration. Whitman, shunted aside in her efforts to resist the more extreme policies of the far right, has responded with a book titled "It's My Party, Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America" (Penguin, 2005).
The book is a critique, representing the (ever-shrinking) moderate wing of the Republican party, of how conservative ideologues have successfully pushed their ideas in such areas as abortion, the environment, and foreign policy. Whitman isn't all that sympathetic to progressives, but her book makes clear the destructiveness of right-wing philosophy when it has real governmental power.
Check it out.
QUOTED! "It gets to a point where you can't wait to see guys with guns, so you start shooting everybody … It gets to a point where you don't mind the bad stuff you do." -- an unnamed U.S. marine lieutenant, on waging a counter-insurgency, as quoted in The Economist
FEATURED ARTICLE
Now that Army Reserve Specialist Charles A. Graner, Jr., has been convicted in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, one wonders whether the "few bad apples" theory will prevail in the public imagination. Hopefully not, for that would obscure the systemic failures and the anything-goes climate that are ultimately responsible for the horrors at the Iraqi prison. One also wonders how the series of trials stemming from the scandal will affect the nation's perception of itself.
By and large, Americans tend to be positive, optimistic people who take pride in the country's ideals and its history -- that is one of our greatest strengths, but it is also a potential weakness, insofar as optimism can blind us to our own failings, and to the past. There is an abiding need for introspection and retrospection. In that spirit, the following excerpts are taken from Douglas Herman's insightful, disturbing essay "Andersonville: Earlier War Crimes 'Abuse' Trial." Herman traces certain continuities between the Abu Ghraib scandal and what happened at the most notorious of the Civil War prisons, at Andersonville, Georgia.
"What--you rightly wonder -- does this horrific prison, located in the heart of America have to do with the Abu Ghraib? Both Andersonville and now Abu Ghraib share the shameful distinction of being among the blackest marks in American military history. One military prison, Andersonville, witnessed the slow torture and death of thousands of prisoners through bureaucratic neglect, while the other -- Abu Ghraib -- saw the slow torture and death through a bureaucratic policy of malignant intent. Even in Andersonville, where death was slow and painful, guards rarely 'interrogated' or tortured prisoners for bits of information…..
"In Washington and New York, then as now, the shock and outrage (after the fact) convinced people of their inherent decency. Newspaper editors opined of the tragedy of war, the carnage and loss, conveniently forgetting their criminal complicity. The true pornography of war (Is there any other kind?) whether the grim photographs of skeletal prisoners of Andersonville or the stripped and beaten Iraqi civilians of Abu Ghraib, is the willingness of so many otherwise decent people to support, encourage and partake in it." Click here to read the whole article.
HAPPENINGS
Radio interview -- CI President Leonard Salle was interviewed on KPFK (Los Angeles) radio's "Uprising" show on December 21, about our new report titled Responding to the Attack on Public Education and Teacher Unions.
New contributor -- The Commonweal Institute is proud to welcome Gilbert Martinez, the author of this month's "Talking Points." Mr. Martinez is a Ph.D. candidate in Biophysics at Stanford University. He is involved in the Stanford Democrats' efforts to increase student participation in electoral politics and is an editor for The Stanford Progressive. He can be e-mailed at Gilbert.Martinez@stanford.edu.
New article -- "Creating Progressive Infrastructure Now: An Action Plan for Reclaiming America's Heart and Sou," by CI co-founders Leonard Salle and Katherine Forrest, is available on CI's website. This groundbreaking article discusses the nature of political infrastructure, including the basic functions that a progressive infrastructure should fulfill, and suggests specific action steps and funding approaches.
TV panel discussion -- CI co-founder Katherine Forrest participated in a panel discussion at the Media Center December 13 about problems in the election process, and what citizens can do going forward. The one-hour program, "Election USA: How our System Worked-and Didn't-in 2004," will be broadcast as part of the Fast Forward series on Palo Alto community-access television, Channels 27 & 28, in the near future.
"The Conservative Marketing Machine" -- A new article by CI Fellow Laurie Spivak, on the clever "packaging, promotion and distribution" of right-wing ideas, has appeared on AlterNet.
Talking Politics Workshop -- The Commonweal Institute will be holding another workshop on "Talking Politics with People Unlike Ourselves." The workshop, designed to help activists communicate more effectively with people who differ from themselves in style, interests, party affiliation or level of interest in politics, is scheduled for Saturday, February 12, from 9:30am to 12:30pm, at the College of San Mateo in San Mateo, CA. To reserve a place, contact Elizabeth Lasensky at lasensky@stanford.edu or 650-799-6468. A suggested donation of $20.00 will be collected at the door for expenses; no one will be turned away if you cannot afford this. Attendance will be limited to the first 50 respondents.
ENDORSEMENTS
"In these challenging times, we need an advocacy think tank like Commonweal Institute to communicate our principles and programs in ways that will resonate with the broad public and empower citizens to take a more active role in our democracy. Commonweal takes a strategic approach to advancing issues in a way that will help decision-makers be proactive in confronting the challenges of the future." -- Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, 8th CD-CA, Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives
GET INVOLVED
If you agree with Nancy Pelosi (see above), there are a number of ways you can help the Commonweal Institute achieve its goals. Right now, as you read, you can simply forward the Uncommon Denominator to friends and family who might be interested in learning about the Commonweal Institute. Getting the word out is crucial. You can also join our network of donors building the Commonweal Institute. Your tax-deductible contribution is vital to making the Commonweal Institute an effective organization. $100 would help so much! Even a contribution of $10 or $20 will make a difference because there are so many moderates and progressives. Click here to contribute online. Or call 650-854-9796. Your support is essential.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© 2005 The Commonweal Institute
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To subscribe to this free e-newsletter, send a blank message to:
ci-newsletter-subscribe@svpal.org.
-- or --
To subscribe from an email address other than your regular one, go to mailman.svpal.org/mailman/listinfo/ci-newsletter, and then enter your name and email address and click on "Subscribe."
Privacy Policy: The Commonweal Institute does not share subscriber information with any other organization or with individuals.
The Newsletter of the Commonweal Institute
www.commonwealinstitute.org
"Hope is the pillar that holds up the world." -- Pliny the Elder
CONTENTS
Talking Points: Keeping young progressives energized
Poll-Watch: Conservatives and the mainstream
Wit and Wisdom: The year in words
Check It Out: What does GOP spell?
Quoted! A U.S. marine on the trials of war
Featured Article: From Andersonville to Abu Ghraib
Happenings: Monthly round-up
Endorsements: Nancy Pelosi
Get Involved: Spread the word; become a contributor
TALKING POINTS
"No progressive change," says Bernard Goldberg, "has ever occurred anywhere in the world without the energy and inspiration of young people."
If that is the case, then progressives should take solace in the fact that, in 2004, Americans under 30 voted in record numbers -- over 21 million, that is, surpassing 50 percent turnout for the first time in 12 years. These voters generally supported the more progressive candidates, and gave John Kerry a 2.1 million vote advantage over the conservative policies of President Bush-the only age group that broke for the challenger. (On youth attitudes and involvement in the election, see the press release by The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement [CIRCLE] and CNN's pre-election poll).
Moreover, the last several years have seen a large increase in political activism among the "youth vote." Whether it was waiting in New Hampshire snow to support presidential candidates during the primary season, fanning the battleground states with America Coming Together, or attending anti-war and pro-choice rallies across the country, younger voters supported their candidates and their causes with more than just the ballot. The progressivism of these voters is underscored by their stronger support for progressive causes compared to the general population: 41% support same-sex civil marriages (25% for the general population) and about 60% say "government should do more to solve problems" (compared to 45% for the general population). For the first time in years, the level of cynicism toward government has fallen among young voters (see CIRCLE's Nov. 8 fact sheet).
Yet progressive losses in the 2004 election -- along with the media's framing of the results as a massive defeat -- have left many of these new voters, volunteers, and activists feeling helpless and skeptical of electoral involvement. To channel and maintain the energy and activism of younger voters, progressive groups need to act now to support and develop programs for this crucial constituency. Younger voters are, after all, our source of future progressive activists and politicians.
In sharp contrast to the conservative movement, which has made a priority of recruiting and training future leaders, progressive organizations have more or less left the younger generation, especially college students, to fend for themselves. While more than half of all college students are active in community service of some sort, few of these students have a dedicated infrastructure to help them get involved in the electoral process or policy making. It is this lack of infrastructure that has forced many students to take it upon themselves to create an infrastructure to sustain the current positive energy of college students.
The Stanford Democrats, for example, have reorganized their efforts to include a speaker series to highlight the constructive role that responsible government plays in everyday lives. They are also working with local political groups to encourage and help young progressive candidates run for local offices, including school boards and city councils -- a strategy perfected by ultraconservatives, as evidenced by the recent attacks on evolution and sexual education programs. The group is also planning leadership training courses for students interested in the electoral process.
Other Stanford students have revamped The Stanford Progressive, a monthly campus newspaper promoting progressive policies and views. Even more, students have begun planning for "The Roosevelt Institution," a student-led "think tank" that will take advantage of the significant policy work already being undertaken by students. Stanford is not unique. Progressive students across the country are writing for newspapers, organizing political groups, and encouraging young people to run for local office. One of the biggest challenges these groups face, however, is a lack of resources and public visibility.
Recently, the Center for American Progress has started Campus Progress, a branch that provides funding sources for progressive campus publications as well as helping to organize nationwide speaker series. This group, although limited in resources right now, will both encourage groups already organized and provide a mechanism for new groups to get started. Although the trends in the youth vote and youth activism are favorable for the future of progressive politics, this is a group of people that must be actively engaged and cultivated immediately, while the level of interest is still high. Progressive organizations need to work with the younger generation and allow them the freedom to pursue their own ideas. As Marie Jonas, president of the Stanford Democrats says, "[We need] to feel our contribution is valuable…not merely being written off as cheap labor."
The funding and credibility of established progressive institutions will allow these student groups to attract more prominent speakers, help students obtain important campaign positions, allow for proper training sessions, and give students the flexibility to be successful and contribute on a substantial level. The future of progressive politics is in those under thirty. It's time for progressives to realize this and act accordingly. The future, and near term, of progressive politics depends on it. -- Gilbert Martinez
WIT AND WISDOM
Something can be learned about our society from knowing which words Americans are most curious about. Just what that something is, we leave to you. But, according to Merriam-Webster's online, the following were the most looked-up words of 2004.
1. blog
2. incumbent
3. electoral
4. insurgent
5. hurricane
6. cicada
7. peloton
8. partisan
9. sovereignty
10. defenestration
o. 6 calls to mind worried homeowners and curious school-kids on the East Coast. No. 7 makes a bit more sense in light of the 2004 Tour de France. The others are pretty clear. But what's up with No. 10? Is there something going on out there that we should be aware of?
POLL-WATCH
The Uncommon Denominator is pleased to introduce a new regular section providing information and commentary on major current surveys of public attitudes.
This month, CI Senior Fellow Patrick O'Heffernan finds that, despite the results of the 2004 election, conservative policies and public opinion are actually out of step in some important areas. PollWatch archives are available online.
PollWatch examined the new 2005 Gallup polls (requires subscription) and tested conservative priorities against several key indicators: gay rights and acceptance of gays in American society, the right to choose, the influence of big business in society, and the place of religion in America. In all but one of these -- the role of religion in solving America's problems -- conservatives were out of step with the American people and the trends were against them.
Gays in society (Jan 3-5, 2005): Conservatives -- the Religious Right in particular -- object to the visibility of gays in American society and vehemently condemn what they misleadingly call "the gay lifestyle." However, Americans by 54% to 42% accept gays in society, by 52% to 48% think gay sex should be legal, and by a huge 89% to 8% feel that gays should have the same rights as straights. The trends in each of these indicators has been toward a more gay-friendly position over the past 25 years.
Big business (Jan 3-5, 2005): Conservatives promote a stronger role for big business in both society and the Administration, and they vigorously oppose pro-environmental, pro-worker, and pro-stockholder regulations. However, Americans by 60% to 8% think big business has too much influence in society, and by 65% to 35% sees big business as wielding too much influence on the Bush Administration. A substantial majority -- 58% to 37% -- believe that current regulation of business should be maintained or strengthened. These attitudes have remained relatively constant since 1993, when Gallup began asking this question.
The right to choose (Jan. 3-5, 2005): Conservatives, and especially the Religious Right, are fighting hard to ban abortion at the Federal level, and wage a constant war at the state level to restrict its availability. Americans are divided on abortion, but disagree with the conservatives who want to ban it; 60% want current abortion laws either unchanged or liberalized, while 38% would like to see additional restrictions on abortion. When asked, 52% of Americans identify themselves as pro-choice and 41% as pro-life. Only 19% support a ban on abortion. Given that polls show that between 38% and 41% of Americans self-identify as evangelical Christians, the 19% figure suggests that a majority of evangelicals do not support the religious right's drive to ban all abortions.
Religion in American society and politics (conducted 2004; published Jan. 2005): Conservatives argue for a greater role for religion in society and see nothing wrong with using religion to direct government policy. Here Americans are closer to them than not, but are trending slowly away. The 2004 Gallup Religious Index (RI, a measure of religiosity in America tracked by Gallup for 60 years) found that 59% of Americans believe that religion can solve many or all of America's problems, seemingly a vote of confidence in "faith-based solutions." However, this number is trending downward, having fallen by 3% since 2001. On the question of religion in American life, the RI rose slightly from its historical low of 641 out of 1000 in 2002 to 648, but has stalled there (648 is still high -- most European countries would rank in the 300's- 400's). However, the RI has been falling steadily in America from a high of 746 in 1956. The Barna Group annual survey of religion in America agrees and indicates that the percentage of Americans who are Christian has also fallen. -- Patrick O'Heffernan
CHECK IT OUT
Progressives are not the only ones feeling the heat nowadays. The far right, intolerant as ever yet newly triumphant, is coming down hard on moderate Republicans who don't toe the line. In the past four years, the political body count has risen steadily: Paul O'Neill, Jim Jeffords, Eric Shinseki, and Colin Powell, to name some of the most prominent.
Add to that list Christie Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey and EPA director in the Bush Administration. Whitman, shunted aside in her efforts to resist the more extreme policies of the far right, has responded with a book titled "It's My Party, Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America" (Penguin, 2005).
The book is a critique, representing the (ever-shrinking) moderate wing of the Republican party, of how conservative ideologues have successfully pushed their ideas in such areas as abortion, the environment, and foreign policy. Whitman isn't all that sympathetic to progressives, but her book makes clear the destructiveness of right-wing philosophy when it has real governmental power.
Check it out.
QUOTED! "It gets to a point where you can't wait to see guys with guns, so you start shooting everybody … It gets to a point where you don't mind the bad stuff you do." -- an unnamed U.S. marine lieutenant, on waging a counter-insurgency, as quoted in The Economist
FEATURED ARTICLE
Now that Army Reserve Specialist Charles A. Graner, Jr., has been convicted in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, one wonders whether the "few bad apples" theory will prevail in the public imagination. Hopefully not, for that would obscure the systemic failures and the anything-goes climate that are ultimately responsible for the horrors at the Iraqi prison. One also wonders how the series of trials stemming from the scandal will affect the nation's perception of itself.
By and large, Americans tend to be positive, optimistic people who take pride in the country's ideals and its history -- that is one of our greatest strengths, but it is also a potential weakness, insofar as optimism can blind us to our own failings, and to the past. There is an abiding need for introspection and retrospection. In that spirit, the following excerpts are taken from Douglas Herman's insightful, disturbing essay "Andersonville: Earlier War Crimes 'Abuse' Trial." Herman traces certain continuities between the Abu Ghraib scandal and what happened at the most notorious of the Civil War prisons, at Andersonville, Georgia.
"What--you rightly wonder -- does this horrific prison, located in the heart of America have to do with the Abu Ghraib? Both Andersonville and now Abu Ghraib share the shameful distinction of being among the blackest marks in American military history. One military prison, Andersonville, witnessed the slow torture and death of thousands of prisoners through bureaucratic neglect, while the other -- Abu Ghraib -- saw the slow torture and death through a bureaucratic policy of malignant intent. Even in Andersonville, where death was slow and painful, guards rarely 'interrogated' or tortured prisoners for bits of information…..
"In Washington and New York, then as now, the shock and outrage (after the fact) convinced people of their inherent decency. Newspaper editors opined of the tragedy of war, the carnage and loss, conveniently forgetting their criminal complicity. The true pornography of war (Is there any other kind?) whether the grim photographs of skeletal prisoners of Andersonville or the stripped and beaten Iraqi civilians of Abu Ghraib, is the willingness of so many otherwise decent people to support, encourage and partake in it." Click here to read the whole article.
HAPPENINGS
Radio interview -- CI President Leonard Salle was interviewed on KPFK (Los Angeles) radio's "Uprising" show on December 21, about our new report titled Responding to the Attack on Public Education and Teacher Unions.
New contributor -- The Commonweal Institute is proud to welcome Gilbert Martinez, the author of this month's "Talking Points." Mr. Martinez is a Ph.D. candidate in Biophysics at Stanford University. He is involved in the Stanford Democrats' efforts to increase student participation in electoral politics and is an editor for The Stanford Progressive. He can be e-mailed at Gilbert.Martinez@stanford.edu.
New article -- "Creating Progressive Infrastructure Now: An Action Plan for Reclaiming America's Heart and Sou," by CI co-founders Leonard Salle and Katherine Forrest, is available on CI's website. This groundbreaking article discusses the nature of political infrastructure, including the basic functions that a progressive infrastructure should fulfill, and suggests specific action steps and funding approaches.
TV panel discussion -- CI co-founder Katherine Forrest participated in a panel discussion at the Media Center December 13 about problems in the election process, and what citizens can do going forward. The one-hour program, "Election USA: How our System Worked-and Didn't-in 2004," will be broadcast as part of the Fast Forward series on Palo Alto community-access television, Channels 27 & 28, in the near future.
"The Conservative Marketing Machine" -- A new article by CI Fellow Laurie Spivak, on the clever "packaging, promotion and distribution" of right-wing ideas, has appeared on AlterNet.
Talking Politics Workshop -- The Commonweal Institute will be holding another workshop on "Talking Politics with People Unlike Ourselves." The workshop, designed to help activists communicate more effectively with people who differ from themselves in style, interests, party affiliation or level of interest in politics, is scheduled for Saturday, February 12, from 9:30am to 12:30pm, at the College of San Mateo in San Mateo, CA. To reserve a place, contact Elizabeth Lasensky at lasensky@stanford.edu or 650-799-6468. A suggested donation of $20.00 will be collected at the door for expenses; no one will be turned away if you cannot afford this. Attendance will be limited to the first 50 respondents.
ENDORSEMENTS
"In these challenging times, we need an advocacy think tank like Commonweal Institute to communicate our principles and programs in ways that will resonate with the broad public and empower citizens to take a more active role in our democracy. Commonweal takes a strategic approach to advancing issues in a way that will help decision-makers be proactive in confronting the challenges of the future." -- Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, 8th CD-CA, Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives
GET INVOLVED
If you agree with Nancy Pelosi (see above), there are a number of ways you can help the Commonweal Institute achieve its goals. Right now, as you read, you can simply forward the Uncommon Denominator to friends and family who might be interested in learning about the Commonweal Institute. Getting the word out is crucial. You can also join our network of donors building the Commonweal Institute. Your tax-deductible contribution is vital to making the Commonweal Institute an effective organization. $100 would help so much! Even a contribution of $10 or $20 will make a difference because there are so many moderates and progressives. Click here to contribute online. Or call 650-854-9796. Your support is essential.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© 2005 The Commonweal Institute
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To subscribe to this free e-newsletter, send a blank message to:
ci-newsletter-subscribe@svpal.org.
-- or --
To subscribe from an email address other than your regular one, go to mailman.svpal.org/mailman/listinfo/ci-newsletter, and then enter your name and email address and click on "Subscribe."
Privacy Policy: The Commonweal Institute does not share subscriber information with any other organization or with individuals.
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