IAVA

IAVA just emailed their supporters announcing that tomorrow congress will vote on the new GI Bill. They are asking all members to call their representative. Here's the link to their action tool:

The House of Representatives faces a historic choice tomorrow when it votes on whether or not to pass the New GI Bill. This vote decides whether our nation will honor its newest generation of veterans and invest in the future of the men and women who have been serving in harm's way. We need your help today.

At this crucial point in the process, please take a minute to call your representative in the House and tell them to vote for the New GI Bill.

Click here to find your representative's contact information. We've included talking points below that you can use on the call.

Thanks to IAVA supporters like you, the momentum for a 21st Century GI Bill has been incredible. The widespread support among lawmakers on both sides of the aisle proves that caring for our nation's veterans is not a partisan issue. However, we still need your help before tomorrow's vote.

Your representative will decide whether or not the New GI Bill is funded. Please take a minute today to call him or her and make sure they vote in favor of the New GI Bill. You can use the talking points below.

Click here to find your representative's contact information. After you do, please take a minute to let us know how the call went by clicking here.
It's time we give our troops the benefits they deserve. Thank you for making your voice heard.

So here's something I just noticed. Senators Jim Webb and Chuck Hagel are proposing legislation for a new "GI Bill" to help veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars go on to college after their service. From a recent op-ed they penned in the New York Times:

Veterans today have only the Montgomery G.I. Bill, which requires a service member to pay $100 a month for the first year of his or her enlistment in order to receive a flat payment for college that averages $800 a month. This was a reasonable enlistment incentive for peacetime service, but it is an insufficient reward for wartime service today. It is hardly enough to allow a veteran to attend many community colleges.

It would cover only about 13 percent of the cost of attending Columbia, 42 percent at the University of Hawaii, 14 percent at Washington and Lee, 26 percent at U.C.L.A. and 11 percent at Harvard Law School.

College costs have skyrocketed, and a full G.I. Bill for those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan would be expensive. But Congress has recently appropriated $19 billion next year for federal education grants purely on the basis of financial need. A G.I. Bill for those who have given so much to our country, often including repeated combat tours, should be viewed as an obligation.

We must put together the right formula that will demonstrate our respect for those who have stepped forward to serve in these difficult times. First-class service to country deserves first-class appreciation.

Over at the Center for American Progress, Eric Alterman provides a whole host of reasons to support such an effort, and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America are running an action campaign in support of new legislation.

So here's the thing - why are no progressive youth organizations partnering with IAVA or organizing their own campaigns? Young Democrats, USSA, Student PIRGs, Campus Progress . . . all of these organizations organized around the passage of the Cost of College Reduction Act, so why aren't they supporting legislation that would grant similar reprieve to their peers who have served our country?

I don't mean to be accusatory here. If you go to the websites of these organizations, they are all running a wide variety of action campaigns that are all very worthy - from ENDA to Global Warming - and work on the College Cost Reducation Act is not yet done. I recognize that there is only so much manpower that organizations can donate to their work, and at some level they need to prioritize. Yet it seems to me that this is a worthy cause on a number of levels. On a moral level, it's atrocious that so many veterans are now unemployed, unable to pay for school, and even homeless. We should do everything in our power to alleviate that situation. On a political level, this is a fantastic issue to make inroads with young people in the military who may now be disillusioned with the Republican Party.

Also, why on earth wasn't this included in the Cost of College Reduction Act in the first place?

Much to my chagrin, HBO canceled John From Cincinnati, cowardly snuffing out the show in 10 episodes rather than even letting it run the usual 12. They must have been looking for the quick score following up on the Sopranos, and instead they got art with more Deadwood-level ratings, and it spooked the suits. I thought getting dusted wasn't going to be an issue? Whatever.

Well, the point is I had the voice of John Monad in my head today when I found a blast from the past come across my screen: Ari Fleischer, G-dubs OG press secretary, is getting back in the game.

For those who weren't hooked on the political junk back in Bush's glory days of 2002-03, it's hard to explain just how good Ari Fleischer was at his job. Tony Snowjob is a garden-variety AM radio hack, and I'm pretty sure Scott McClellen really is a robot, but Ari motherfucking Fleischer was the drum-major kingpin of that press corps when he manned the podium. He bossed those stenographers with such ease and grace that even as he was being arguably fascistic -- telling reporters, for instance, that "people better watch what they say" or "those fuckin' towel-heads are going to get themselves eradicated" -- you sort of had to love him. He made the whole macabre free-fall more like watching well-choreographed dance.

So, I was sad to see him go when he had the foresight to bail out back in 2003, right after the Iraq invasion popped off, right at the zenith of Bush's presidency. He gave it up for a six-figure corporate job and a wife about half his age, but hey, it was all in keeping with his mastery of the system. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Well, now he's back, this time fronting for a $15M pro-Iraq-surge campaign being run by a coalition of former Bush Administration officials. "For those who believe in peace through strength," says Fleischer, "the cavalry is coming." Hoo-rah!

They're basically going to run a shit-ton of ads propping up Republicans (and some Bush Dog Democrats) by exploiting wounded veterans to make people feel guilty about "pulling out." Oh, and of course reminding everyone that if we don't "finish the job" "over there", "they" will "attack us again over here."

Cue burning Twin Towers footage. 9/11 is huge.

I can't say I'm truly glad to see him back though, at least not like this. He looks like he's put on weight, and re-running essentially the same narrative he left off with four years ago just reminds me of an ugly time in our history, an ugly time to be a New Yorker. While I'm reluctant to bet against his special egg-headed deadpan judo, I just don't see how the old 2003 playbook with a splash of revisionist history Vietnam angst is going to turn things around for the Bushies.

Ari Ari Ari! I expected so much more. But still, I got my eye on you, buddy.

This post began as a reply to Mark Ristaino, Music for America's Communication Director (the post, for those not familiar with MFA's past, formerly held by Future Majority's Mike Connery), who commented on my most recent thesis post -- Keys to a Future Majority: Experiencing the Problems of Progressive Politics. My response got a little long, and I covered some important ground (to me) so I decided to make it into a full post.

Mark asked:

But as you talked about in your previous blog, the key to movement building is a combination of connecting with members both online and offline. As in, connecting with them online, and then convincing them to do stuff offline, as mike did so well with you.

The million dollar question: What organizations are doing this effectively?

There are a few organizations on the left that are effective at this, while I would hazard to say that a good amount of Right Wing organizations are. The two orgs that come to my mind are Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (insofar as they are "left") and Cosmopolity, though both in different ways.

Cosmopolity and it's leaders-- Justin Krebs, David Alpert, Katrina Baker, & (Emmy Nominated Documentary Director & Producer) Matt O'Neill, along with a large group of some of the most amazing, energized, and hard working (despite all the liberal drinking) group of activists I have ever met -- have helped to foster Drinking Liberally's across America with little money whatsoever. And yet, even without resources, they are helping provide social spaces for liberals/progressives to meet, and they are able to keep a pulse on the activism going on throughout the nation (Katrina Baker, DL's National Organizer, leads a group of people who interact with local activists in 160 cities). Though some DL's are better attended than others, this is a group that is connecting people offline (and connecting with those people), with far fewer resources than MFA has had at its disposal (to put it extremely mildly). As you probably know they have recently branched out into Reading Liberally (progressive book tours and readings), Screening Liberally (free screenings of socially conscious movies), and Laughing Liberally (a progressive comedy series- which has been, to my consternation, selling out each week in NYC before I can my shit together to get a ticket). As a result of their work--helping motivated people build up small pieces of progressive infrastructure--Cosmopolity is extremely well connected and actively engaged with the larger net- and grass-roots.

I first heard of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) when they started blogging at MFA (they were known as Operation Truth back then). I was extremely excited to find a military organization reaching out to young people, and I have been beyond impressed at the amazing work that Paul Rieckhoff and his crew (who are all over the nation) do-- from advocating for the safety of our troops, to reaching out to Vets with PTSD and advocating on their behalf, to starting a PAC (which has since been spun off) which supports vets of OEF and OIF who run for office. The thing that impressed me the most about IAVA was Paul's extremely strong managerial skills, and his unreal ability to connect people and make things happen (I have my own selfish reasons for enjoying Paul's connecting skills- my current job- but if you want to see just how amazing IAVA is then you really need to see When I Came Home, which is about a homeless Iraq vet- Harold Noel- in NYC, who IAVA helps to get housing). I also highly suggest watching their new promo video. Anyway, I think that Paul has not only an org that can reach out to two communities that Democrats need to reach very, very badly- young people and the military (many of who are in their youth)- but he has the no-nonsense, results oriented, and battle tested managerial skills that the leaders of almost every other left wing groups lack (and I believe they could learn from Paul). IAVA, like Cosmopolity, also does a lot of work with relatively little funding, but I am sure that both of these groups would be able to have even larger, and longer-lasting, effects if they were given the resources to expand.

And a quick disclaimer- I do work with/volunteer/write about both of these groups, so yes, I am biased, but after what I went through with MFA you can imagine why I would be attracted to these two groups.

***Update - If you haven't seen Matt O'Neill and John Alpert's amazing documentary - Baghdad ER- check out the site, watch the trailer, and keep your eyes out for showings of the film.