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Truth For President.org
2003 - 2004
I thought the US could not withstand a second term of the Bush
administration. I wanted to pitch in and do something to “un-elect” him. I
had the idea that if the 20 million people in the US who practice yoga,
meditate, and generally pursue a path of mindfulness-in-living would go to
the polls to vote their values, certainly George Bush would be sent
packing. I knew that many of these people, of whom I was one, often
neglected to participate in the political process, thinking it to be
beneath our spiritual high-mindedness.
So, I decided to create an on-line project — part newswire, part
call-to-action, part library of articles. I would send bulletins to
thousands of meditation and yoga centers, spiritual communities, teachers,
healers, etc., encouraging them to get political, to take their practice
from the mats and safus of studios, ashrams, and zendos to the world. I
myself wrote more than 30 articles, which were published widely, including
“President Bush: I’m Coming for You,” which drew upwards of 500 emails to
my inbox within a matter of days.
I also wrote “An Open Letter of Conscience and Choice,” which was
co-signed by many prominent figures from spiritual and political circles.
This letter was widely published and circulated. This letter also drew
many rebukes from yogis, practitioners and teachers alike, who were
angered at my presumption in telling them Bush was bad. Some were glad he
“had the guts to rid the Earth of the terrorists who wanted to come and
kill our children and steal our way of life.” Some suggested I move to
Iran (I think they meant Iraq), go to hell, read the Bhagavad Gita
to learn what Krishna told Arjuna (I had read it, albeit a long long time
ago; still I can’t think of a thing that Krishna allegedly told Arjuna in
that fabled myth that I thought relevant), and do something to myself that
is anatomically impossible.
Truth for President.org was an election-year project. I took down the web
site at the end of 2004. But I learned in that year that social
responsibility and political activism were as much a part of spiritual
endeavor as meditation, chanting, and studying. Radical Sages, launched in
2005, was the re-incarnation of Truth for President.org
Here are excerpts from the Truth for President.org (TFP) web site:
Introduction
We will soon elect a president, an event of immense importance to us
all. TFP wants a president who will represent universal spiritual
values; one who is committed to peace through peaceful means, to
environmental purity, to corporate social responsibility, to civil
liberty and labor rights, to equitable taxation and distribution of
wealth, to affordable health care and quality education, to equal
opportunity and rights under the law — regardless of gender, ethnicity,
or sexual orientation. I want a president who understands the spirit and
law of the people, by the people, for the people. I do not
believe that George W. Bush stands for any of these principles.
I therefore believe the most urgent spiritual and political challenge
facing us this year is to vote George W. Bush out of office! I believe
the initiative outlined in this proposal will be instrumental in
achieving this end.
As the self-styled “war president,” I am particularly appalled at
President Bush’s militaristic attitude and philosophy of unilateral and
pre-emptive military action. The U. S. currently deploys almost a half
million troops in 156 countries, with U. S. military bases existing in
63 of those countries. Our military budget is more than $400 billion
dollars per year — equal to the combined military expenditure totals of
the top 25 military spending countries. The Department of Defense is the
world’s largest landlord, controlling 845,441 structures covering 30
million acres. The US continues to spend tens of billions of dollars
annually on its nuclear weapons programs even though it already has a
nuclear arsenal equivalent to 150,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. warned us, “A nation that continues year
after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of
social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
There are other reasons to vote Bush out of office. Author Jack Huberman
writes that in the past three years the Bush administration has created
“a record of deception and hypocrisy, relentless rollbacks of progress
of every kind, tireless devotion to the interests of big business and
the wealthy, and confederacy with the programs and prejudices of
right-wing and religious zealots. Its message is that this
administration’s policies will leave America more isolated and less
secure, its public finances crippled, its people less secure financially
and less healthy, its children more poorly educated, its scientific
progress blunted, its culture coarser and stupider, its wealth
concentrated in fewer hands, its news media likewise, its federal courts
packed with partisan right-wing judges, and its corporations more free
to escape taxes, pollute the air and water, and lie to consumers — all
for decades to come.”
Paul Waldman writes in Fraud: The Strategy Behind the Bush Lies and
Why the Media Didn’t Tell You: “For this president, lying is only
sometimes done ad hoc, as a reaction to an unexpected question or a
discomforting criticism. But most often it is the essence of his
political strategy, the key to every major policy move. Whether the
topic is taxes or Social Security, the environment or education,
Medicare or foreign wars, the aggressive deception of the American
people is the foundation on which each Bush policy is built.”
These authors, as do many others, substantiate their claims with solid
evidence and extensive documentation as to the failures of the Bush
administration policies. But this information is not widely known, and
the Bush “spin” continues to masquerade as truth.
The Problem
In his stump speech, Senator John Edwards refers to “two Americas.”
Defining his image, I would say the two Americas are separated by the
quality of their news: one America tunes in to mainstream,
corporate-owned news outlets like the evening network news, daily
newspapers, and weekly magazines such as Time and Newsweek; the
other America reads and listens to independent and investigative media
like Mother Jones and Democracy Now!
These two Americas are separated by a huge divide. One has only to enter
the world of independent media and investigative journalism to realize
this. Independent media journalists and reporters are not emissaries of
corporate culture, values, and interests. They are not apologists for
Bush administration policies nor simple stenographers for Bush
administration press briefings. Rather, they challenge Administration
claims and let their search for truth illuminate their stories. The
in-depth investigation, reporting, and analyses required to truly
understand current events comes primarily from the independent media,
which most Americans do not even know exist.
Though the independent media preach daily to a large choir, they still
exist on the outskirts of mainstream America’s consciousness. The
issues, stories, analyses, opinions, and revelations presented by this
“second America” are not reaching a wide enough audience — the
bestseller status of books by Michael Moore, Al Franken, Molly Ivins,
Arianna Huffington, and other politically progressive authors
notwithstanding.
The Solution
Radio commentator Wes Nisker said, “If you don’t like the news, go out
and make some of your own.” This is what I propose to do with
TruthForPresident.org: Create a web-based publicity machine to bring the
stories, analyses, and opinions of the independent media and politically
progressive writers to the attention of the American public through
the mainstream media!
There is good reason to believe this can be the case. In the March issue
of The American Prospect, Michael Tomasky and Eric Alterman
write:
“Are our national media—schoolyard silly during campaign 2000, by turns
somnolent and sycophantic ever since—starting to rouse themselves from
their long torpor? It's still way too early to answer that question with
a "yes," but if that's what the answer turns out to be, the first week
of February may have marked a turning point.
“In that week, the media started raising new questions about the
justification for the Iraq War; broke an important story about the
administration knowing last fall that the Medicare bill would cost $134
billion more than it let on to its employers (the public); broke another
about a probe of alleged bribes at Dick Cheney's Halliburton; and
finally, led by The Boston Globe's Walter Robinson, started to take a
semi-meaningful look into George W. Bush's disputed National Guard
record.
“Don't start dancing to the music just yet, though. Bad habits die hard,
and we've all come to expect too little genuine journalism and far too
much of what might be called "journalism-related program activity."
TruthForPresident.org will capitalize on this emerging opportunity by
feeding “our national media” with the information presented by
independent media and politically progressive writers, columnists, and
activists. But since “bad habits die hard,” we have to help the national
media rouse fully from their long torpor; we can’t let them go back to
sleep.
The Action
TruthForPresident.org will influence the consciousness and actions of
the mainstream media, political policy-makers, and cultural
thought-leaders through a campaign of daily press releases to thousands
of contacts. Each press release will be a succinct “headline” summary of
a story intended to counteract the publicity machinery of the Bush
administration and its propensity for deception, distortion, and
misinformation. But, since it is not enough to just criticize, press
releases will also provide a positive contrast by promoting a socially
progressive agenda of issues, analyses, and solutions. Press releases
will deal with all issues pertinent to the election and will draw from
dozens of sources.
ARTICLES
(click on each title to read)
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