The Field on the Narcosphere

By Al Giordano

While so much of the US news media was understandably focused on the Health Care Reform debate on Capitol Hill, and a few thousand (and that’s a generous head count) tea-bagger protesters against it, also in eyeshot from Congress today, one half million strong rallied for immigration reform.

You can see that much larger group in the photo above. I didn’t want to let this day pass without making sure they were seen and heard here.

Unlike the decimal-sized gaggle of tea-baggers, not one immigration reformer shouted “nigger” at civil rights hero John Lewis, not one yelled “faggot” at Barney Frank, and certainly none slurred Congressman Ciro Rodríguez as a “wetback.” None of the peaceful demonstrators for Immigration Reform held up placards with pistols on them threatening violence, as was cheered at a tea-bagger demo on Saturday.

According to the local Fox news affiliate (not a network known to exaggerate progressive head counts), the Immigration Reform marchers numbered half-a-million strong. They showed, as they have since May 1, 2006, their superior discipline and mobilizing capacity to that of any other movement or cause in the United States in recent decades.

Although many members of the Hispanic Caucus in the US House have declared, again and again, that their number-one priority is legislating a path for citizenship for twelve million undocumented Americans, they unanimously showed up and supported the Health Care Reform legislation and its reconciliation bill tonight. They did so even after swallowing defeats and compromises that blocked so many undocumented Americans from access to the newly legislated improvements in the Health Care system.

Without the votes of those 23 House members, today’s battle would not have been the historic victory for Health Care Reform that we have just lived to see.

It’s objectively true, once again, that the Democratic coalition owes them, but that is not at all the only reason why Immigration Reform must now, at this precise hour, be driven through to victory.

It is unconscionable that twelve million people – children, elders, workers, homemakers – in the United States of America are left defenseless and persecuted for simply existing. Other than the comparatively very small number of full-blooded descendants of Native Americans that are still around today, every single one of the rest of US citizens likewise come from immigrant stock. The injustice of deporting people who are so much like our grandparents and great grandparents is as un-American an impulse as could be exercised.

To leave the status quo in place would mean continuing to rip mothers and fathers away from their children (as happens so often when the children, having been born in the US, are citizens but the parent is not considered “legal”). And, of course, continuing such policies to their natural conclusion by attempting to deport twelve million people or even one tenth of them would be unworkable, more expensive and harmful than any of the problems such enforcement claims to cure. And that’s why, on Friday, even Republican US Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) joined with US Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) to announce their upcoming legislation in a Washing ton Post op ed column: The right way to mend immigration.

Beyond the policy and moral common sense of pushing immigration reform through to victory in this now historic year of 2010, there are political imperatives for progressives of opening the door so that these twelve million undocumented brothers and sisters, when they turn 18, will be able to vote alongside of us.

For the Democrats, this should be a no-brainer: The influx of newly eligible voters would turn swing states Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico deep blue. It would usher Arizona from red to blue. And it would soon enough put even Texas in the swing-state category, winnable again for Democrats.

And yet (as Graham and others have noted) it also makes sense for Republicans to get out of the way of this inevitable reform: Not to do so further alienates their chances at winning the votes of some thirty million Hispanic-Americans (and Asian-Americans and others) who are US citizens and for whom reform is a deeply personal and important matter.

It was the same right wing coalition that flooded the US Capitol switchboard in May 2007 to defeat the last push for immigration reform that in recent days and weeks attempted to do the same against Health Care Reform. Today’s vote knocks them back on their heels, off balance, demoralized and squabbling among themselves. (Wait 'til Rush Limbaugh finds out that to move to another country he will have to confront its own immigration laws!)

This is not a moment for authentically progressive Americans to rest on our laurels. It is, rather, the hour to go in for the knock-out punch and to defeat the haters and their demagogues on the very issue that they last were able to claim victory. To do so would break their spirits for a generation to come, fulfilling the hope that took its first baby step in November 2008.

Now, as with any great and sweeping change, the push for Immigration Reform is going to fray the coalition a bit, just as the push for Health Care Reform (and the New Deal and the Great Society) before that did.

When it comes to Immigration Reform, there will be those – some we might not expect yet – who will become kill-billies and behave just as hatefully and hysterically as the ones we’ve just seen implode over Health Care. Some will attempt to toss grenades into the process and claim their pot shots are from “the left,” or, more laughably, from “the base” - just as they did on Health Care.

Let me please serve notice to each and every one of you on this historic night when we have the Health Care victory fresh in our hands. We will either convince you (nice to have you on board for the final battle, Dennis, Howard and others) or we will roll right over you (I’m lookin’ at you, fire-baggers and tea-baggers alike).

Lead, follow or get out of the way, but Immigration Reform is coming.

I leave you with this image of the president with a fallen friend, the one who was the champion both of Health Care Reform and of Immigration Reform…

When we are moving forward, we keep moving forward.

Field Hands, community organizers, readers, colleagues and friends: in the words of that old gospel spiritual, one that also represents the historic best of the United States of America that we saw revived tonight: “People get ready, there’s a train a ‘comin’, you don’t need no ticket, you just get on board…”

By Al Giordano

This is it.

It all comes down to the next seventy-two hours, and who gets on the field and claws for every last inch.

The US House of Representatives will be in session this weekend to vote on Health Care Reform and every “whip count” on the tally shows it razor close.

The magic number is 216: That’s the number of votes that will be needed for the bill to pass (or, alternately, to kill it, if all members cast votes). The “yes” side claims 204 solid votes, the “no” side claims 210 (caveat emptor on both counts): In the middle, there are said to be 16 conservative Democrats being pushed and pulled from all sides.

But those “whip counts” can be deceiving because we now enter the hours where defections from both sides are already happening and likely to continue (plus, the predictable threats from Congressional critters seeking to exact eleventh hour concessions on other matters in exchange for their votes).

The President flew to Cleveland this week, turned US Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) from a “no” to a “yes,” and, with feeling, Kucinich then went on Democracy Now and pwned naysayer Ralph Nader (talk about a perfect foil) with his newfound support for the bill.

In these final hours, look for the media to ratchet up every rumor and morsel of distraction to make your heads spin; aimed in some cases at emboldening one side, or at demoralizing another, and in all cases on grabbing your attention.

Keep this in mind: NONE OF THAT MATTERS. The media doesn’t get a vote on this. Only members of Congress do. Health Care Reform is going to be decided in the trenches: district by district, member by member, phone call by phone call, and inch by inch.

President Obama has now cancelled his planned trip to Asia this weekend to quarterback these final minutes of the game. The AFL-CIO and the unions are on the field, blocking and running interference. 99 percent of the Netroots blogs are in the fight, led by the Daily Kos and with Nate Silver of 538 up in the coach’s booth with the binoculars. Organizing for America has the plays and instructions cued up and ready for everyone that wants to be on the field.

While the relevant players are calling, writing and faxing US House members, a good number of the kill-billies (on the right and the few stragglers that claim to be on the left) are in full freak-out mode. (Worrying about whether Rahm Emanuel is “vindicated” or not, and whether if he’s vindicated if that somehow vindicates their stalker-like obsession with Rahm; how lame is that?) We will deal with them handily after all is said and voted. How we deal with them will largely depend on whether Health Care Reform rises or falls this weekend.

Right now, and for the next 72 hours, the only thing that matters is the ground game: Which side generates more phone calls, faxes, visits, emails and other creative pressures on members of Congress.

Which brings us, once again, to this locker room speech from Al Pacino (remember the only other moment we posted this, Field Hands?): Life is a game of inches:

“We can climb out of hell, one inch at a time… Life is this game of inches… The margin of error is so small, I mean, one half a step too late or too early and you don’t quite make it. One second too slow or too fast and you don’t quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They’re in every break in the game, every minute, every second. On this team we fight for that inch. On this team we tear ourselves and everyone around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know, when we add up all those inches, that’s what makes the fuckin’ difference between winnin’ and losin’, between living and dying… That’s what livin’ is: the six inches in front of your face.”

Spend four minutes watching it. Then go grab every last inch that appears for the next seventy-two hours. In the case of Health Care, for millions, this "game" really is a matter of living or dying.

History is never made from the sidelines. It is made on the field, by those who claw with our fingernails for that every last inch.

By Al Giordano

Ter García and Marine Lormant at the School of Authentic

Journalism. Photo DR 2010 Karina González.

Today we roll out the fourth in the series of videos produced at the 2010 Narco News School of Authentic Journalism, this one outlining easy steps of how journalists, writers, artists, musicians and other creators can utilize “copyleft” and other Creative Commons licenses as alternatives to copyright:

The video was edited and produced by class of 2010 scholars Marine Lormant and Ter Garcia. They wrote the following about how they made it:

The video, Share Creativity, is based on a series of plenary sessions at the School of Authentic Journalism given by Marine Lormant, a scholar on the video team. Since the plenary was quite long, we decided to record the audio anew to narrate this video. The goal of the video is, above all, explain as simply as possible how to license a Creative Commons work. Utilizing the freedoms that other Creative Commons users offer, we borrowed from videos, songs, photographs and other elements available on the Internet that give support to the lessons.

Most of the videos were found on the Internet pages of Creative Commons and Internet Archive. The process by which the video was elaborated also offers a clear example of the opportunities that these licenses offer. We chose to put the song, "Copying Is Not Theft," by Nina Paley, which has been infused by other styles of other artists, as an example of how existing works can be used to create new ones with the explicit permission of the author.

This video (original in Spanish with English subtitles) succeeds at an important goal we tell all writers and media makers: Don’t just tell the audience, show them. It doesn’t merely lecture the viewer on how to license works using Creative Commons (and the many reasons why creators might wish to do so). The video also demonstrates what can be done using and amplifying upon works that are already licensed that way.

Ter and Marine have been working round-the-clock here in the Narco Newsroom since the 2010 j-school ended in mid-February; capturing the many hours of video shot there and storing it on hard drives, archiving it all properly, doing the final edits and subtitles on the three previous videos we’ve made public so far, taking the leadership on this one, and they have still more on the assembly line coming soon to an Internet screen near you.

Marine has to return to New York tomorrow for work duties, which we all lament. Her talent and work ethic will be missed. But not to worry: she’ll be continuing to collaborate on the post-production of the videos from there... and I always visit our graduates in prison, er, the Big Apple!

You, too, will have the opportunity to meet Marine and Ter next month at the Narco News Tenth Anniversary Celebration, April 17, in New York City, and hear of their work and experiences at the 2010 School, along with a dozen other graduates of various generations of the j-school. Here’s who has confirmed so far:

* Johanna Lawrenson * Bill Conroy * Katie Halper * Josh Bregman * Erin Rosa * Bruce Miller Earle * Milena Velis * RJ Maccani * Marine Lormant * Richard Bell * Mariana Simoes * Barrett Hawes * Ter Garcia * Al Giordano *

Each of us will offer comments or stories of about five minutes apiece to share just how special and important this School - and the Fund that supports it - is to continuing and expanding the work of authentic journalism. As on previous Aprils, from Los Angeles to Seattle to New York, the anniversary celebration will be a benefit for The Fund for Authentic Journalism. The Big 1-0 of course will be a very special celebration. Trust us on this, you really don't want to miss it. Space is limited, so make your reservation at this link while tickets are still available.

By Al Giordano

When we last weighed in on the Congressional machinations in Washington over health care reform around the new year, there was more heat than light coming not only from the right but from some loud and shrill corners that called themselves “the left,” many even claiming to represent “the base” of President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.

Two and a half months later, the situation has evolved to a very unique occurrence in progressive American politics: the authentic base rejected those grandstanders who wanted to let the perfect be the enemy of the good (the “bill killers” have pretty much wilted from their 15 minutes of overexposure), and has rallied around the cause of health care.

The US left (if such a thing has even existed in recent decades) for once in a lifetime did not fall for the orgy of petty bickering that led to so many previous epic fails, and what we see now is a convergence of forces, from the grassroots up, that can be defined as A. Pragmatic, in its multiple expressions in favor of advancing the ball down the field, and in rejecting the calls for “all or nothing” that had so defined many squandered US progressive political efforts over the past 30 or 40 years, and, B. Disciplined, including in the miraculous appearance of organizing to insist on discipline in the ranks of anyone who traffics in the term “progressive” to promote themselves.

I don’t know how it came to be, for so many years, that pragmatism and discipline were considered dirty words in many US activist circles. But the truth is, political battles have never been won without pragmatism and discipline.

Perhaps another time we can offer some historical thoughts on how it is that so many activists in the US came to see pragmatism as being “not pure” or not radical enough, and discipline as representing a loss of individuality and autonomy instead of an individual and autonomous choice to work together with others in strategic action.

I’d rather marvel, for now, at what has recently happened North of the Border to bring pragmatism and discipline back in vogue.

First, the evidence:

The national progressive group MoveOn (one that not too long ago would sometimes have the activist vice of allowing the perfect to be enemy of the good) recently polled its members with this question: “Should MoveOn support or oppose the final health care bill if it looks like the plan recently proposed by President Obama?” The result was that 83 percent support the bill to just 17 percent against it.

Among the authentic base, the tide has also turned against the longstanding tendency of holier-than-thou “purity troll” advocacy, as was recently evident in the cases of two Democratic US Representatives that had voted against health care on the first round because, they said, it did not go far enough. US Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) imploded and had to resign (yes, there were other more, ahem, prurient reasons for it, but he himself, at one point, claimed that the root of his meltdown was his vote against health care).

And now it is US Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) in the hot seat.< ;/p>

You know the earth has shifted under Kucinich – long a proponent of a single payer health care system, for which the votes simply do not exist in Congress at present to achieve – when former supporters like Lisa Baskin of Massachusetts are posting this message on their Facebook pages:

“I have voted for, sent money to and agreed with Dennis Kucinich in the past. Now I want him to vote YES for the healthcare bill, imperfect as it is. Join me, Call Congressman Kucinich. Ask him to vote Yes.
Phone (202) 225-5871”

In this video from last week, Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos offered a long pending smackdown of Kucinich’s position (it appears at two-and-a-half minutes into the video, after an entertaining segment about Rush Limbaugh). When asked if Kucinich should be challenged in a Democratic primary if he votes against health care reform this time, Kos said “yes”:

And five hours ago, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile posted a Twitter tweet saying the same thing:

“If a handful of Democrats decide to defeat this bill, they deserve to get a primary challenge to defend the status quo & insurance industry.”

It used to be that any attempt to invoke discipline on behalf of progressive political ventures in the United States would be met by screeching condemnations and accusations of heavy handedness and crushing of dissent. Gawd, that was a boring (and ineffective) era! The truth is that in the big leagues of any contest, no victory is ever achieved without pragmatic discipline.

The base – and by that I mean the authentic base (those that do the leg work and heavy lifting of political organizing, not just mere activism) – has lost its patience with the kooks and the constant complainers.

How and when did that happen? I would posit that it began to happen around last Christmas, when the self-proclaimed “progressive” bill killers overplayed their poutrage hand by calling for health care reform to be defeated. Folks at the grassroots level needed only to compare and contrast the behaviors of the different players on the left side of the dial in the US. Those that kept their eyes and hands on the ball and worked to get the best possible bill (which as with any legislation on any subject involves compromise) to move that ball down the field (especially including the White House) simply earned more respect than those who whined and pouted and offered increasingly shrill demands.

For now, I’ll just say how encouraged I am to see the authentic base asserting itself and adopting the necessary pragmatism and discipline to go out there and win this long political war over health care.

It has been 62 years since President Harry Truman first proposed national health care reform. And if, as momentum seems to be turning, perhaps as soon as this coming weekend the health care bill pushes through to historic triumph, it will be because pragmatism and discipline are no longer considered dirty words on the US left. That would be a miracle, and also harbinger of better days, and more victories, yet to come.

March 17 Update: And here's US Rep. Kucinich announcing that he will support the bill:

He had previously voted against it. But discipline has a way of getting around...

By Al Giordano

If you're among our many readers in the Massachusetts - where The Fund for Authentic Journalism is registered as a 501c3 nonprofit organization - please read this job description and, if you're interested in being a key part of this international team, write to search@authenticjournalism.org to let us know you might be able to do it.

It's an unpaid position but among its perks could be a complimentary ticket to the upcoming Narco News Tenth Anniversary Celebration on April 17 in New York (I'll tell y'all more about that shortly), or perhaps even an invite to the next School of Authentic Journalism.

From 1977 to 1996 I lived and worked mainly in the Bay State - from the Berkshires to Boston and parts North, Central and Southeast - and have many good friends, collaborators and colleagues there. Here's one way we can be in more regular contact.

Anyway, read all about it, and here's hoping you're the right the man or woman for the job!

By Al Giordano

Photo: DR 2010 by Jill Freidberg.

That's Sebastian Kolendo, 22, in the photo, above, 2010 scholar at the School of Authentic Journalism, from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. You may have already read his excellent essay, Cameras for the Shy, sharing some of what he learned last month in Mexico at the Narco News J-School.

While there, he also produced this video, tapping on his experience and observations as a volunteer editor at Wikipedia and as co-chairman of the committee there that mediates disputes over the online encyclopedia's content. This video informs you, in simple steps, how you can edit entries at Wikipedia, too, and also talks about the influence of that Internet resource on public opinion:

As part of our "The Making of the Video" series, I asked Seb to share with y'all more details of how he produced this video. He writes:

Three pieces of software were used in the making of this video: Screenium, a screen-capture program; Audacity, an audio tool; and Final Cut Pro, which mixed the video captured by Screenium with the audio recorded with Audacity.

Editing the audio in Audacity was the most difficult part. I actually made two recordings under somewhat different conditions, so they sounded slightly different from each other. Because these two recordings had to be cut together, they needed to sound similar.

In my first recording, the sound never rose above 5kHz. In my second recording, there was a faint crackling and the higher frequencies were significantly louder than in the first. While the tools used to correct this are simple enough, the task of making recordings sound similar was rather tedious. The first thing I did was analyze the spectrum of the two recordings. Audacity does this automatically, and returns a graph where the x-axis represents frequency and the y-axis represents volume. From there, I used a graphic equalizer tool to change the volume level in a given frequency range. Adjusting one audio track to have a spectrum that looks more-or-less like another takes trial-and-error and time.

The next difficulty was removing all the umms and pauses from the recordings. There were plenty: I wasn't using a script during the recording, so I largely spoke off the top of my head.  It's fairly easy to hear in the video where the audio is mismatched. (there is a very noticable “are” where I'm explaining the demographics.) It's clear that proper annunciation is important when recording to avoid words bleeding together that you later need to split.

Using Screenium was the easiest task. You just open a browser window to Wikipedia and tell Screenium to record for about 5 seconds. In Final Cut Pro, you can loop those videos as many times as you need for the audio.

Of all the videos that the viral video team produced, this one was probably the simplest to make. Tutorial videos are easy to create but hard to do right. This was my first attempt at a tutorial video – actually, it was my first video ever – so it's easy to see where there's room for improvement.

I personally really like this video. It follows "the KISS rule" ("Keep It Simple, Stupid") and demystifies two things that everyone can do: 1. Write and edit entries on Wikipedia, and, 2. Make videos to share your skills with others.

As Seb notes, he had never produced a video before attending the School. In ten days he learned to use a camera and also to produce video (with audio) and did it.

As to whether this great video can "go viral" (like our Torture in Egypt video that, since last week, already has more than 1,400 views on YouTube or Translations with Father Charlie video that now has more than 350) that's largely up to you. If you think it should, embed it on your websites, blogs, Facebook and other social networking pages, Twitter its link, among all the other creative things we can do to get these instructional and educational videos out there.

And I know that some of our regular readers and commenters here are also volunteer editors at Wikipedia, so please feel free to use the comments' section here to offer additional pointers and advice to our readers who would also like to do so...