Restoring the American Spirit

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It seemed appropriate to be in New York City, site of the tragedy that reshaped American life, to think about the future of our country. “American Spirit, Values, and Power,” presented by the City University of New York Graduate Center and the New York Open Center, was a vibrant discussion devoted to key questions of our time: Is the present political course what’s best for America? And if not, how do we change things?

“I’m shocked at the political turns post 9/11,” declared Don Hazen, executive editor of the Alternet.org news service. “And I know it couldn’t have happened without the media.”

He urged progressives to take time to consider how their ideas come across to working class people, many of whom seem reassured in these frightening times by Bush’s and Donald Rumsfeld’s “strict father” image. A surprising number of lower-income voters, especially white men, rally behind the Republican Party, even though GOP policies threaten their pocketbooks and communities. Hazen suggested emulating conservatives’ success at making sure their messages are clearly articulated to the broader public. “Everything needs to be said three times,” he advised. “You say you’re going to say it. You say it. And then you say that you said it.”

Hazen also proposed creating truth squads, which could expose all the ways that right-wing pundits mash, ignore, and completely fabricate the facts on whatever issue they’re debating. Despite the impressive reach of Fox News and talk radio bully boys, Hazen reminded us that progressive-leaning independent media have just as much potential to influence people’s thinking. A constellation of alt weeklies, neighborhood newspapers, zines, indy media outlets, culture mags, activist newsletters, community radio, feisty Web sites and blogs, along with countless green, women’s, labor, gay, spiritual, social justice, natural health, and youth publications, independent media enjoy an immediate grassroots presence in people’s lives and communities that highly paid right-wing media superstars can’t match.

Addressing the theme of American spirit, Ralph Nader noted, “Civic exhaustion is the biggest problem facing us.” Citizens are no longer motivated, he explained. They no longer feel they can make a difference. That may be what’s at the heart of the Bush team’s political strategy: to shovel so much economic and political clout into the hands of corporate executives that the rest of us feel almost powerless to change anything in our country.

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