Also listen to Brent Budowsky’s interview on the Mark Riley show on the new media, click here for the links to listen. It will take only 16 minutes to change your life. The Huffington Post

Brent Budowsky
New Year: The Triumph Of New Media, New Politics, New Optimism and New Leadership
12.31.2006
2007 will be the year that brings a new wave of influence, power, money and idealism to the new world that will define the media and politics of the post-Bush area.
George Clooney will be a model of activism and engagement for the entertainment world.
Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth will be a model for using the medium of entertainment to bring great issues of the world to larger audiences, which mobilize great constituencies.
Arianna Huffington will be a model of bringing ideas and opinions to a larger audience on the internet that will synthesize with talk radio and cable television and transform infotainment.
Nancy Pelosi will be a model for empowerment and engagement not only for women for the next generation of change waves in the rising tide that will lift many boats across America.
Keith Olbermann will be a model for cable television that in 2007 will cease being a megaphone for reactionary politics and the culture of insiderism, but will reach upward and outward to the larger audience of the real America.
The 2006 election was the result of the first stage, and the empowering catalyst for the second stage, of the great transformation that will move rapid fire and fast forward through 2007.
Time Magazine was close. The True Person of the Year was not "You"; it was "Us."
The celebration of "me and you" was the culture and attitude of the Bush years. The triumph of "we and us" will define the post Bush years, the next great era of American political reform, the media transformation that has already begun, and the next renaissance of ideas, optimism and entrepreneurial [spirit]
Brent Budowsky served as Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen, responsible for commerce and intelligence matters, including one of the core drafters of the CIA Identities Law. Served as Legislative Director to Congressman Bill Alexander, then Chief Deputy Whip, House of Representatives. Currently a member of the International Advisory Council of the Intelligence Summit. Left government in 1990 for marketing and public affairs business including major corporate entertainment and talent management. He can be reached at brentbbi@webtv.net.
 

Thom Hartmann takes on the Bush Administration! This 22 minute video segment of Thom reading his amazing article "When Democracy Failed" was taped at the KPOJ studios (Air America Radio affiliate) Portland, OR.
Also check out Thom's site and watch the only cartoon ever nominated for a Nobel peace Prize. 1939 MGM Cartoon "Peace On Earth" It was broadcast in the US just after Germany had pre-emptively invaded Poland, a protest against Bush-Iraq-style pre-emptive wars, and before the US was attacked at Pearl Harbor and thus entered WWII. You'll be amazed.. thanks Thom.

Activists, media makers, educators, journalists, policymakers and concerned citizens are gathering in Memphis this January to mobilize for better media.
The National Conference for Media Reform is for anyone who is concerned about the state of our media and committed to working for change. This energizing weekend will present ideas and strategies for winning the fight for better media and connect you with thousands of media reformers from across the nation.

January 7, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
The Timely Death of Gerald Ford By FRANK RICH

THE very strange and very long Gerald Ford funeral marathon was about many things, but Gerald Ford wasn’t always paramount among them.
Forty percent of today’s American population was not alive during the Ford presidency. The remaining 60 percent probably spent less time recollecting his unelected 29-month term than they did James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.” Despite the lachrymose logorrhea of television anchors and the somber musical fanfares, the country was less likely to be found in deep mourning than in deep football. It’s a safe bet that the Ford funeral attracted far fewer viewers than the most consequential death video of the New Year’s weekend, the lynching of Saddam Hussein. But those two deaths were inextricably related: it was in tandem that they created a funereal mood that left us mourning for our own historical moment more than for Mr. Ford.
What the Ford obsequies were most about was the Beltway establishment’s grim verdict on George W. Bush and his war in Iraq. Every Ford attribute, big and small, was trotted out by Washington eulogists with a wink, as an implicit rebuke of the White House’s current occupant. Mr. Ford was a healer, not a partisan divider. He was an all-American football star, not a cheerleader. He didn’t fritter away time on pranks at his college fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, because he had to work his way through school as a dishwasher. He was in the top third of his class at Yale Law. He fought his way into dangerous combat service during World War II rather than accept his cushy original posting. He was pals with reporters and Democrats. He encouraged dissent in his inner circle. He had no enemies, no ego, no agenda, no ideology, no concern for his image. He described himself as “a Ford, not a Lincoln,” rather than likening himself to, say, Truman.

Dallas Air America joins with other groups around the United States to save Air America and progressive radio in a number of US cities....
With the success of saving the AAR station in Madison, WI activists in that city have created a website to serve as a clearinghouse for all such efforts.

Remember members of our group contacted all the businesses listed as advertisers on the ABC blackoutlist and we have posted our responses here.
January 5th, 2007
It all started when blogger Spocko rightfully criticized Disney-owned, ABC-affiliated radio station KSFO for some of its ultra-right-wing commentary. (For example, the hosts demanded that callers mock Islam, called for public hangings of New York Times editor Bill Keller and suggested that a Sears’ Diehard battery be attached to an African-American’s testicles.) Spocko recorded some audio clips from the radio station’s air and posted them on his site to support his criticism. He also sent letters to the radio station’s advertisers, which were being mocked by the hosts, to let them know what was going on. So what does Disney do? Fire the hosts? Nope. They roll out their lawyers and send a cease-and-desist order to Spocko’s blog host, which pulls the plug on him. Unbelievable. Read more about it on DailyKos, which has the letters. UPDATES: The clips that were pulled down are now spreading like crazy. A Technorati search of “spocko” shows 370 results, most of which have been posted in the last 24 hours. And there’s a video slide show on YouTube expressing solidarity with Spocko and featuring some clips from the radio hosts.