freelansing in Seattle

political praxis & catalytic communications

  • Post-election: The challenge for progressive populism

    The elections of last Tuesday were reportedly very bad for progressives. And in many ways they were. But in some ways, they could serve as a catalyst for something great. The question is: Which way forward from here? After a major progressive mobilization helped bring Obama into the White House & give Democrats a large… Read more

  • Posts elsewhere (w/ great links!)

    I’ve neglected my own blog a bit as I’ve been posting to the Eat the State! blog lately. As we wait to see how deeply The Crazy has infected the American electorate, here are a couple things I posted at ETS! in October with a few awesome video links reflecting on the ways that The… Read more

  • Don’t Be a Sucker! Viralize this!

    I don’t often recommend “educational films” made by the US military. But this one — “Don’t Be a Sucker,” from 1947 — is brilliant, and essential viewing for all Americans in 2010. (And it’s only 17 minutes long!) Its purpose was to warn Americans against falling prey to simplistic appeals to prejudice. Having just defeated… Read more

  • “Peak Oil”: Framing problem?

    Someone forwarded a link to this movie tonight: “A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash.” Looks interesting, & I’ll check it out, but I’ve gotta say that the trailer contains some questionable assumptions. Seems to follow typical “peak oil” framing: Oil is running out & that nothing can quite replace what oil does, so that’s a… Read more

  • Eat the State! ends an era, begins another

    (Self-referential alert!: I mostly avoid talking about myself in this blog, which is about larger societal issues, but the passing of the print version of Eat the State!, the feisty independent paper I’ve worked on for almost 14 yrs, seemed worthy of note. Here is my personal reflection on ETS! history and my own history… Read more

  • The Rules Are No Game: Time to End Corporate Rule

    Anthony Wilden, with whom I studied communication theory and systems theory in college, wrote a book called The Rules Are No Game. The phrase has long stuck with me as a terse encapsulation of the idea that all systems—from computer operating systems to sporting events to political systems—operate according to certain underlying rules. Those rules… Read more