OpEdNews - Diary: Newsletter Message: Time for 3rd Party Democracy and Media; You Get What You Pay For

Staying focused on November I don't know if the American people have ever been so dissatisfied with both sides of the houses of congress. This offers an opportunity. It's time to get rid of the impediments to third party democratic participation in politics. In PA, Dem and Repug US senate candidates needed 2000 signatures to get on the ballot. The Green candidate needed 90,0000. That's not democracy.

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The good thing about HAVA (perhaps the only good thing) is that every voting machine can now handle Instant Runoff voting (IRV) which enables you to vote from your heart for your first choice, then from practicality with your second choice. It's the mechanism that will, with equalization of access to getting on the ballot, make third party politics viable. Now is the time to get this on the ballot both locally and nationally. Start looking into it. We're doing it here in PA. A coalition should be formed to make it happen nationally. It probably needs to be done as a grass roots effort, since the incumbents won't go for it. Have a great weekend. And, remember, you get what you pay for, including with the media If you aren't supporting the progressive media, how can you complain about the mainstream media. With enough support, anything could happen. We could BECOME the mainstream media. With $2 million, Arianna Huffington built a site that reaches two million unique visitors a month. We've built our readership up, without the celebrity name, without the hundreds of celebrity contacts and the celebrity rolodex, to 300,000 unique visitors, for less than 1/50th of the cost. If we had real funding, I know we'd be reaching the same amount or more. Why are we doing so WELL? We have great writers-- not famous, though a few are-- but great, with a lot of heart and smarts. And we've got a website that is doing things that most mainstream media companies have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions to do... and most important, we have great editors-- in particular-- Joan Brunwasser, covering Voting integrity, Amanda Lang, covering news and best of the web op-eds, and our newest member of the team, Russ Wellen, covering best of web op-eds. All three find great content and occasionally write great articles. So.... if you want to see the media get better, if you want to see progressive media reach further into the heartland, HELP US!! Make a contribution today. Thanks, Rob Kall