Special BRAD BLOG / Velvet Revolution coverageof the Sep 24-26 Rally in D.C.
Guest blogged by Katrina Wilcox
Yes … dear BRAD BLOG readers, I have not failed you. I have subjected our fearless leader to my interview questions as well. Bless his heart, he answered them.
1. What caused you to become an activist and when was this?
For the record, I don’t feel that I’m an activist. I’m simply a citizen doing what I consider to be my civic duty.
So what caused me to realize I have a responsibility to do what I’m doing?
That probably deserves a longer answer than you’re likely to want right now, but we can thank two parties for helping me to realize that civic duty: 1) George W. Bush – For helping me to see how a lack of concern for the ideals our country stands for, a complete disregard for our great Constitution and a complete disdain for our citizenry and our rule of law can so quickly destroy so much that so many have fought for over so many years, and… 2) The Corporate Mainstream Media – For their delinquency in being the watchdog against corruption and tyranny. They have wholly forgone their responsibility to this country in favor of the almighty dollar, leaving the citizens to fend for themselves as they drown in a toxic flood of corporate greed and indifference beneath the broken levees of the once-great Fourth Estate.
2. What compelled you to start The BRAD BLOG?
Boredom. I had been producing an enormous weekly show (CRIME SCENE) in Los Angeles for the previous five years. It was a gigantic new show each and every week which played to sold out audiences for its entire run. After a few months rest, I found myself itching to get busy with something. I had no idea it would ever become what it has. I can’t wait until the day it returns to little more than re-posting of Doonesbury cartoons and the occasional ideal thought…as it was when it began.
In an ironic side-note, I played a fake satirical newsguy in that show for a while, performing weekly takes on politics and the media (sacredfools.org/crimescene/TWIC/default.htm). Now I play a real satirical newsguy on The BRAD BLOG. The line between comedy and reality…and the corporate mainstream media…is startling and gives me either a chuckle or a good cry at least once or twice every week.
I’m horrified that I’m doing what I’m doing. But someone’s got to.
3. What message would you like every American to hear at this crucial time?
Pay attention to what is happening to your once great democracy. If you don’t, it will be gone. The politicians are failing you. The media is failing you. It’s time for a Velvet Revolution.
4. Given the chance to address Congress and the administration, what would you say to them?
You’re all under arrest. Please head this way…The Bus to “Club Gitmo” is waiting for you.
(Except for you, Mr. Conyers…and one or two others, you can stay and fix what these bastards have done.)
5. What do you consider to be the most important problem facing America at this point? Do you have a solution?
Elections are a joke. Democracy is dead. The two party duopoly has hastened the destruction of this country and the rise of the Corporate Machine.
The solution? Making noise. Now.
6. Bringing about change in the government through letter writing, signing petitions, and making phone calls is not working. Do you have any thoughts or ideas on ways to accomplish real change?
I’m not sure I agree with your premise that the letters, petitions and phone calls are not working. Perhaps not working as fast as we like. But trust me, if everyone who voted in America (whether those votes are counted or not) sent a letter, made a phone call or signed a petition every day, I promise you things would change and they’d change fast.
And if they didn’t, when only half of those people headed to Washington and took to the streets to demand change, the quivering white cowards who sit atop the American Congressional/Corporate Elite would haul ass down outta town to their off-shore vacation homes to take up permanent exile so quick it’d make your head spin.
I’ll be happy to show them the door. But I’ll need the help of at least half of those who cast votes (or try to) in America.
7. One such idea is for everyone that attends this weekend’s rally to stay in Washington until the government is forced to change and bring the troops home, etc. Do you think that idea would work?
Yup. Without a question. The bad guys count on our indifference. Show them resolve, stand up for real American values and the cretins who run the government will fall like a house of cards.
8. Do you have any thoughts or ideas on ways to get the corporate media to get our message out?
Keep doing what you’re doing. And I’ll keep doing what I am doing.
We have the advantage over the bad guys — although I know it’s sometimes hard to feel it — that we are right and they are wrong. And each and every day someone else realizes that and comes on board.
Feel a Velvet Revolution brewing yet?
If not, keep up the good work. Rome wasn’t built in a day. And bad guys don’t give up power easily. But they don’t do well against angry mobs with torches and pitchforks.
9. Are there any further comments you would like to make?
May God bless America. But don’t count on him to save it.
Great questions and great answers. I feel exactly the same way about every single thing you said, Brad.
"We have the advantage over the bad guys — although I know it’s sometimes hard to feel it — that we are right and they are wrong. And each and every day someone else realizes that and comes on board."
That’s what keeps me going, right there. If the momentum ever dies, so shall we. We ARE right and the sleeping citizens of this country will thank people like you, when they find out how the MSN lied to and mislead them. I hope they all go out of business, as more and more American’s connect to the internet, leaving them in the dust. Someday, maybe MSN will get a clue and realize how they let us all down. Their degree of guilt, in the demise of our country, grows every single day. Surely they must down multiple pills each night, just to obtain any sleep. Screw them, they’re history, just like AM radio.
I know I’ve personally shown about 6 people (or 6 households) their corporate bullshit. Those households now read their news online, from real sources, like so many of us now are. Only one I know of, has started blogging, but more will follow, I’m sure. That’s just little tiny me. If we all did that, I think we’d have a chance!!!
Thank you for your dedication, Brad and Katrina. You give so many of us the hope we need to get through each day, while keeping us informed of what’s really going on.
Thanks for this one, Brad and Katrina. I am a guy who had never visited a blog, despite doing much of my business online and checking my favorite out of town papers for sports online.
Then I participated in the National Election Reform Conference in Nashville back in April. I sat for 3 days and listened as my worst fears were confirmed by stoic patriots; many of whom had been slogging away in the darkness against the fact (as proven by the testimony of these folks) that George W Bush had stolen the 2004 election. It was a joy to witness and be a part of (thanks to Bernie Ellis and his Gathering to Save Our Democracy here in the Music City) a historic meeting of like-minded people; people who knew that our election had been a sham.
I didn’t want to be involved in this, any more than any of the rest of us did. But I have to do it. I have to keep pushing to have our election laws changed here in Tennessee, so that voter-verified paper ballots are a reality by next election. I have to keep preaching to the uncoverted about the seriousness of losing our rights to elect our leaders, so that we can fairly choose our own destiny. I have to keep up with issues of election reform; and the only way I can do it is throught the alternative media.
Hearing Brad rouse the troops in Nashville – and being the host for the late, great Andy Stephenson – hipped me to Bradblog, VR, DU and all the others. And my life is forever changed. The price of democracy is, indeed, never-ending vigilance.
Thanks Brad, for all you do. And you’ll be getting checks from me before long – as soon as I quit sending them to my family on the coast…
Shannon "Bayou" Williford
A musician in Nashville
Excellent interview. Thank you Katrina and Brad. I am new to the blogs and this interview explained in a nutshell what ‘blogs’ are about. I kept hearing on the Merry Sunshine Media references to blogs and didn’t have a clue what it meant. Now, several months later, here I am posting on one myself. I am so glad I was led by Cindy to get back on the net. I just stumbled in here without a clue and was so astounded to find out I was not alone. This is a brand new world to me.
I often say "God Save America" because I believe God works through people and only ‘we the people’ can save America. I don’t know if we can for the hour is late but this new experience gives me hope. Thank you Brad. M4
This blog has degenerated into nothing more than a pool of gangrenous ignorance as proven by the fools who have engaged in racist and other slurs. It doesn’t take even a miliwatt of intelligence to do that.
Glad to see so many of you are living up to your full potential.
What idiocy here.
Hey everybody!!! Please read my comment HERE
(Especially James Stephenson #4)
Sorry to say, James Stephenson, you are in the distinct minority today. Your neoCONS are soon to suffocate in their own toxic waste. Hallelujah, AMEN!
Thanks Brad for continuing to put up the best content on the web (and finding some fantastically talented people to do so when you are away).
I like to think that it was pretty cool to talk with you before you blew up big (and still had time to personally answer all your emails).
Many thanks for the great work you do for our country.
Great interview, thank you very much! And i agree with Brad, (#9) ‘Pray to God, but row toward shore’, an old Russian proverb.
Hey Kira! Your comments were very uplifting, and it seems you got the info from a wide sampling of people. Good news.
James Stephenson re: #4 – Thank YOU for taking time to come here and let us know that we’re getting under your skin! It means we’re doing our job.
Ya know, every now and then, just when I’m starting to think nobody’s paying attention, someone comes here and confirms the fact that we have become a major thorn in the side of the neo-con entity.
Thanks Brad, for giving us a place to come and rattle their cages.
Great interview y’all.
Bradblog inspires me.
Yesterday i was listening to 97.1 talk radio Conway and Whitman because as anyone knows who lives here in LA/OC, the radio stations are just like your comments about the corporate mass media. Thus good musical programming has gone to the wayside to corporate owned stations that play a lot of uninteresting or the same old. This has effectively ruined rock music in a town that’s suppose to be all about music. My point was this. Conway is usually pretty funny and his former partner Doug Stegler was a load of laughs and atitude but he’s gone now. What was so interesting is in a matter of 5 minutes, he exposed how unknowledgeable he is about the whole Bushit administration. In the segment i heard, he played some clips of a couple of black speakers from the protest rally in Washington over the weekend and then made his comments. Granted these angry, distraught and somewhat inarticulate speakers sounded like they were talking at a 1960’s civil rights convention, it glaringly demonstrated that the men with the microphone believe all the White corporate mass media one sided Bushit devoid of all the important focal points of your blog. U and your team are doing a great service to our country and fellow citizens by posting updates to these important stories and creating a diolog for dissenting views of corporate Bushit amerika. ROCK ON!!!
Brad,
Thanks for not banning me 🙂
I have to disagree with what you said about staying and trying to force Washington to change. We elected Bush because he promised to stay the course in Iraq. If we wanted to cut and run, Kerry would have been elected.
Oh great, now he thinks he’s a comedian. Or maybe he’s having delusions of grandeur.
Nuclear, with all due respect, I don’t think we actually elected Bush. It took all manner of dirty tricks to keep this loathsome cretin in office, from disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of democrats in a dozen key states to out-and-out machine vote fraud in Florida, Ohio and a few other states. I think we can all agree Kerry was a disappointing candidate at the end of the day, but teven then, the exit polls–the most reliable of all metrics, and what we use to judge the legitimacy of OTHER countries’ elections–had Kerry winning by 3%.
As for 2000, even the MSM has acknowledged Gore won. So Bush has never legitimately won an election. That makes him illegitimate, or simply a bastard.
And America and the world is paying the price for this bastard.
Back on topic, I discovered Brad Blog courtesy of Air America last October when I was concerned the Repubicans were going to try to steal the election again. Since then I’ve been inspired by Brad, a regular guy like me who feels it’s his civic duty to do what he can to bring justice to this corrupt broken election system and America in general. So thanks, Brad, for all that you do.
Thanks, Brad & Katrina, for the great interview and for being in the vanguard of the effort to restore decency, sanity & democracy to our wounded country. I know I’m not alone when I say that the work you do is deeply, deeply appreciated!
Slightly ot, but I have to say that I was moved & inspired by my experiences in DC this weekend: by the huge turnout (WaPo Sunday said organizers estimated the crowd at 300,000, DC police said 150,000; but 4 cabdrivers questioned by a friend put the number at closer to a million), by the meeting of new friends, by the humor & camaraderie of passing strangers, but especially by the palpable outrage & passion of so, so many people!
And I’m moved & inspired by this blog & the man who created it. THANK YOU, BRAD!
…and thanks to James, #4, for providing a telling & useful contrast, nicely illustrating the caliber of comment we’ve come to expect from the more venomous elements of the rightwing.
Kestrel, #8, you’re so right!!!
Thanks for the nice comments, guys. And especially to Katrina for the great work she’s done in her first Guest Blog outting! Jumping in head-first to save democracy! The only way to do so!
Vance, email me anytime! 🙂
NuclearChemist – You are delusional. But as long as you don’t personally insult other commenters, you are welcome to continue your fantasies here. They inspire more than you likely realize.
Jim,
I have yet to see any facts that proves fraud was committed. You can have all your "beliefs" that you want but "beliefs" don’t always turn into facts. Just look at Bush and WMD.
As far as polls go…. In the days before the election, I think there were 7 different polls out. Fox News had Kerry up by 5 (or was it 7?) and others had Bush up by 5. The average had Bush up by 0.6%. Polling is part art and part science. Ohio had what, 2.5 million voters and the exit polls interviewed 2,020 people. If polling can be used as a "fact", why did Kerry have a 17% lead at one point in one state only then to watch it rapidly decrease as conservatives got off work and voted? Who’s to say in Ohio that most of the exit polling wasn’t done in the morning when people without jobs (Kerry supporters) voted?
#16
Zogby on pre-election 2004 polls
Exit polls, suppression, fraud, glitches, etc.
Voters Unite Election Problems
Comment to #16 — I don’t know how you can stand to look in the mirror every day. Your comment makes you sound like a bigot. Well, not just sound like, you ARE a bigot. A large portion of Kerry supporters have jobs – many of them have MORE than 1 job because this current bu$h administration has cut programs that help people who are disadvantaged and down on their luck.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
Thank you Kira ,if only you lived in the Ukraine ,you could rely on your election results.
As they say (trolls) "read them and weep".
Its a shame the trolls never post links to back up their claims but I think they are so used to relying on their "faith" in the POTUS that facts just get in the way of their arguments.
“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of great complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth, if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven thread by thread into the fabric of their lives.
Leo Tolstoy.
Fine interview, Brad and Katrina.
I’ve been an activist in various degrees for a long time, but I was behind the times regarding blogs and their potential. (I am embarrassed to admit my main unexamined thought was that it was a funny word!) It was in getting hooked on Brad Blog that I began to understand the very great potential of this quintessentially democratic form of citizen action. In fact, I believe your blog (my favorite), Brad, is a shining light and great hope when it appears that the lights of democracy are going out in so many places. (Of course, there are many other wonderful blogs – speaking of "a thousand points of light"!)
We are all immersed in the details and emotions of the discussion of our time that we often fail to see our part in creating a life-affirming and enduring society. But that’s what we are working toward, consciously or not.
(Speaking of "activists", Brad – I think you are a citizen-activist – which I consider a form of civic antibody that emerges – Cincinnatus-like – when the body politic is invaded by evident disease. But I won’t haggle over terms.)
Take my word for it — the Brad Blog will figure prominently in the accounts of the citizen uprising sparked by and focused on election manipulation – a prominent element of the "tipping". And that’s just the beginning.
We are writing those accounts.
Kira,
"Comment to #16 — I don’t know how you can stand to look in the mirror every day. Your comment makes you sound like a bigot. Well, not just sound like, you ARE a bigot. A large portion of Kerry supporters have jobs – many of them have MORE than 1 job because this current bu$h administration has cut programs that help people who are disadvantaged and down on their luck."
If you take a look at the exit polls that you so heavily base your reality on, you’ll see that the >$30,000 club voted for Bush (except I believe the highest bracket). We were all at work during the day and couldn’t vote until afterwards. Who voted early in the day? Mostly those that didn’t have jobs or had the day off. That was why Kerry was initially leading until us with good paying jobs got off work and the tide began to turn.
#16
NuclearChemist,
You wrote:
"I have yet to see any facts that proves fraud was committed."
Comments like this, often demanding to know "Where’s the proof?", were heard immediately after election ’04, which struck me as decidedly odd.
Here’s a question for you, Nuclear.
If a neighbor came to you & said "Please call the police, my wife was just assaulted!", would you say:
A. "Oh my God, that’s terrible! Yes, let’s call the police!"
…in which case the police would come, conduct interviews, examine the evidence, do all the things police do to try & determine if an assault actually took place; or would you say:
B. "Don’t be ridiculous! That’s impossible! How dare you suggest such a thing?! Where’s your proof?!"
…in which case you could continue to berate your neighbor, calling him a conspirator and a fool, and, a year later, could say to him, his distraught wife & their concerned friends: "Gee, folks, I have yet to see any facts that prove an assault was committed."
Our government chose B.
And it continues to stand by that incomprehensible choice, even though the victim was the country they claim to love.
But hey, what do I know? I’m one of those crazy lefties.
Thank you Joan! Good analogy.
Nukie – you’re so terribly wrong and misinformed (or not informed at all) and I stand by what I said to you in my comment #17.