Category: Demographics/Psychographics

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Every year, bestselling author and social media visionary Chris Brogan challenges his huge reader base to come up with three words to provide focus for the coming year. This year, I decided to take the challenge for the first time since 2016. My three words are:

  1. Clarity (click to read Part 1, where I discuss this word)
  2. Justice
  3. Healing

Justice

Nonviolent peace demonstration in Britain
Nonviolent peace demonstration in Britain

Today’s installment is about Justice, and how it shapes both my career and my activism.

My career has evolved quite a bit from its founding (as a term-paper typing service!) in 1981. For the past several years, I’ve focused my writing, speaking, and consulting on helping business turn hunger and poverty into abundance, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance. By showing companies how to make a profit doing this, I hope to leverage far greater change than I would if I tried to motivate them through guilt, shame, and fear.

Lets make this concrete: I listed several benefits for each of five different examples in this blog post.

Ready to know more?  In the very early phases of this shift in my business, I did a TEDx talk, “Impossible is a Dare.” (you have to click on “Event Videos”, and then on my talk). It’s a nice 15-minute introduction to this idea as it existed in 2014; I’ve refined it quite a bit since then. A much deeper introduction is my 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, endorsed by Chris, Seth Godin, Chicken Soup;’s Jack Canfield, Joel Makower (Executive Director of GreenBiz.com) and many other business and environmental leaders. And of course, I’m happy to talk to you about how I can be a “Sherpa” on this journey for your organization. 

But now, let’s go back to the activist side. In order to talk about Justice, I also have to talk about Injustice: what we’re trying to change.

And from there, how I personally am working to change injustice into justice through community-based activism: the work I do in my non-career time. There have been a few times in my life where that work dominated my day and pushed the career part off to the side. This is one of those times.

Marchers at a rally for racial justice and immigrant rights, Holyoke, MA. Photo by Shel Horowitz.
Marchers at a rally for racial justice and immigrant rights, Holyoke, MA. Photo by Shel Horowitz.

As a citizen of the US, I’m deeply concerned about the attack on our planet and its people (and other living beings) by the current federal government. This government and its most visible spokesperson have viciously attacked immigrants, people of color, people without a Y chromosome (not male, in other words) or who don’t identify with the gender of their birth or any gender, people who are not Christian or even Christians who condemn him, people with disabilities, people suffering in poverty who face attacks on safety-net programs such as SNAP benefits (formerly known as food stamps) as well as authoritarian responses to homelessness, people who’ve survived crimes this government doesn’t view as important (such as sexual harassment), and even 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg–as well as people who might be likely to vote for someone other than that very visible spokesperson.

Humans, at least, can defend themselves. Forests, oceans, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the plants and animals that we share our planet with–they need human beings to defend them against the brutal attack by this administration. Since January 2017, this government has rolled back dozens of environmental protections, stripped government websites of information about issues from the human impact on climate change to toxic pollution databases, barred government scientists from speaking out, and of course, pulled the US out of the Paris climate accord.

As of October, 2019, that same visible spokesperson had lied at least 13,435 times while in office. He has violated his Oath of Office every single day since he was sworn in, because he refused to divest himself of emolument-laden business interests and thus undermines the Constitution; he illegally uses his position for personal enrichment. He even went so far as to order the next G7 Summit held at his own golf resort (public pressure forced him to walk this one back; even Fox raised an eyebrow). And of course, there were the two violations so egregious that they led to his impeachment. I would have preferred a much fuller bill of criminal activity (this link lists nine potential counts as far back as July, 2018).

But the problem goes far deeper than one corrupt and mean-spirited individual in a position of great power. 

As a citizen not just of the US but also of the world, I worry to see similar patterns repeating in many other countries, among them Brazil, Hungary, India, and Bolivia–and less intense versions attempting to rear their heads in places like France and UK.

I’ve been an environmental and social justice activist since October, 1969. That’s just over 50 years. Since that time, I’ve done much to improve the lives of my fellow residents of Earth, whether human, other animal, plant, fungus, or other lifeforms. I’ve been involved in numerous campaigns, and was glad to play a role in winning some of them. But there’s so much more to be done!

Each of these situations involves many cases of justice denied. I will do what I can to turn that around; I will continue to write and speak and act and organize and demonstrate and lobby from a place that says we are better than this, that we don’t accept this as normal, and that we are not willing to turn the clock all the way back to 1930s Germany. And I will continue to take comfort in the small victories we win, and the many friends I have made in the Resistance who prove to me that we are, indeed, better than this.

And each of us has an impact, often far greater than we realize at the time. Never accept that you cannot make a difference as an individual! But recognize that it’s easier to make that difference if you work with others.

I can take direct credit for victories ranging from a crosswalk at an intersection that desperately need one to starting the movement that saved a mountain when the “experts” thought our victory was impossible. And I’m far from done.

In May, 2019, my wife and I were accepted as sanctuary accompaniment volunteers, helping protect an upstanding immigrant who has to live in a church because he would be deported if caught outside the grounds. This is a hard-working man who just wants to provide for his family, including three children born in this country. He has lived in the US for nearly two decades, and in the church for more than two years.

A month later, we participated in an eight-person delegation to stand witness outside the prison holding up to 3000 migrant teenagers in Homestead, Florida. That prison, like the far worse one in Tornillio, Texas, was closed due to public outcry. The affinity group we went with is called Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice of Western Massachusetts. In February, we will be part of a ten-member JAIJ delegation doing relief work on the border at Brownsville, Texas and Mataoros, Mexico. Despite our tiny numbers, we’ve had a lot of influence, because we’ve been doing talkbacks, media interviews, and multiple public events since our return from Florida, and we’ve raised thousands of dollars to support the relief mission.

As in all my environmental and social work these 50 years, I hope to see my work become obsolete and unnecessary, because the problem has been fixed.

I dedicate my 2020 work for justice to the spirit of Frances Crowe, of Northampton, Massachusetts. She requested, for her 100th birthday, a demonstration with 100 signs representing 100 causes. She got 300 people marching in the streets, and I think she got her 100 causes, too. A few months later, she attended one of our public talks about the Homestead Detention Center just two weeks before she died. She was working on a climate scorecard for individuals to observe and improve their behavior at the time of her death.
I first met Frances at one of those actions that turned out later to have made a huge difference. She and I were both among the 1414 people arrested in 1977 while occupying the construction site of the Seabrook nuclear power plant, in New Hampshire. She was 58; I was 20, and I didn’t have a leadership role. When we got out, we discovered we’d birthed a nationwide safe-energy movement.

Part 3, on why I chose “Healing” for my third word, went live on January 20. Please leave your own three words (or any other appropriate comment) in the comments. Note that they are moderated, so don’t bother spamming.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Ethics: General, language, Networking, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , ,

This thought-provoking and mercifully brief article in the Atlantic explains why DT fanatics refuse to face his evil.

Go and read it. I’ll wait. And yes, I know it’s almost a year old–but it’s still completely relevant.

It makes so much sense to me! It’s not that DT’s ardent followers can’t see the criminal behavior, the looting of the public treasury, the constant lying and bullying, the attempt to accuse someone else of whatever it is he’s accused of today. It’s that they define corruption very differently than the rest of us to.

Of course, if this is accurate, it poses a big challenge for activists. When facts don’t matter at all because ideology is paramount, it’s really hard to change people’s minds. 

I think it can be done, one conversation at a time. And those conversations have to be handled very carefully. They have to:

  • Respect the other person as a person (that means no name calling, among other things)
  • Seek common ground even when it’s hard to find
  • Avoid making the other person feel diminished, stupid, heartless, etc. and at the same time, not condoning the diminishment or insult of others (in the form of prejudice

This is a huge challenge. I recognize that. I’ve had some of these conversations. Van Jones has had some.

Van Jones, activist, speaking in 2015. Photo Credit: Department of Labor, Shawn T Moore

I’m deeply inspired by groups that facilitate dialogue between groups of peope who are opposite sides of deep divides. That could be Better Angels bringing together Left and Right in the US–or Combatants for Peace bringing Israeli and Palestinian former combatants together on speaking tours. Or dozens of other groups.

How do you find hope and opportunity while in dialogue with people you ardently disagree with? Please post in the comments.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, Media Ethics, media-general, Politics, propaganda, Psychology Tagged with
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts

I’m a big fan of Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. She’s been my Senator for more than six years, and I was aware of her consumer advocacy for several years before that. In the crowded field of Democrats seeking the presidency, she’s my top choice.

BUT I still think she made a big mistake turning down a chance to broadcast a Town Hall meeting on Fox news.

I’ve been puzzling about this for almost two weeks, looking for something fresh to say that hasn’t been said before, as in this article by Megan Day:

In Warren’s scenario, Fox News’s politics will be defeated by a few principled liberal politicians engaging in a media blackout. In [Bernie] Sanders’s, Fox News’s politics will be defeated when the Left convinces a significant portion of the Right’s working-class base that they’ve been duped, and that the pro-worker left best represents their political interests...

By refusing to go on Fox News, Warren has demonstrated that she doesn’t take this task as seriously as she ought to. As Sanders has plainly stated, the power of the capitalist class is so formidable that it will take a huge movement of millions of united workers to actually overcome it in reality. Warren’s policy ideas are frequently excellent, but without a fundamental orientation toward the very people who stand to benefit from them, they stand little chance of materializing.

I agree with  Day. Warren’s better policy initiatives are not enough if she’s going to rely on the liberal elite to make them a reality.

And she should know this. She’s a born organizer, and her speeches are very approachable. Like that guy in the White House, she understands how to talk to ordinary people with in some cases limited education, to make them feel excited by (and ownership of) her ideas.

Yes, Fox is toxic. But when people have swallowed poison, you go in and pump their stomachs. The argument she makes that she doesn’t want to enrich the network or legitimize it seems spurious. After all, Bernie Sanders attacked Fox during the Town Hall they gave him and televised.

And then it hit me that my own start in journalism was very relevant.

In 1972, as a 15-year-old junior at Bronx High School of Science, I got my first article bylines–covering peace demonstrations and other progressive events. I didn’t get them in the official school newspaper; writing for Science Survey was only an option for the students in the honors journalism English class.

I got them in one of the school’s underground papers. A paper called Insight, published by a small group of right-wingers who identified as libertarians. They ran my stuff with disclaimers: “the following article does not reflect the views of the management,” etc.

But they ran my stuff! I was able to share my viewpoint, encourage the peace and environmental agendas of groups I was involved with, and build a publication portfolio that led to a 45-year writing career and the authorship of 10 books and thousands of articles.

And even at the time, I felt that maybe the best part was that they put me in front of an audience that was skeptical of my views. They gave me a forum to reach people who disagreed with me. I have no idea if I changed anyone’s mind, but I was given that chance.

Elizabeth should have taken that chance, too.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Business-general, censorship, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Events, General Commentary, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized Tagged with ,

The LGBT Pride March in Northampton, Massachusetts has happened every May since 1982. Northampton, an artsy college town on the Connecticut River with a population under 30,000, has mostly been a haven for lesbians and gays (and more recently, for trans, bisexual, and gender-queer folks) for decades–but there were some major bumps along the road, such as the arrest of several gay male Smith College professors in 1960. Another bump occurred in 1983, as you’ll read below. And at one point someone tried to shut down the event because it was too big and the person tried to claim that the town was overwhelmed. But the March marches on.

I marched in the first Northampton Pride March, served on the organizing committee for the following three years (1983-85), and have marched every year I’ve not been traveling except for one year when a friend’s daughter was becoming Bat Mitzvah. I haven’t counted but it’s probably at least 32 of the 38 years.

The first year, there were about 500 of us, many covering their heads with paper bags for fear of retribution—and many others did their best to avoid cameras. We were met with a couple of thousand curious gawkers and maybe 100 very loud, very hostile counterprotestors from the local Baptist church. We considered it an enormous success. The next year, I think we had about 1000, and about 20 counterprotestors.

But later that year, a sitting at-large City Councilor ran for re-election, and won, on a platform of “I will stop the gay rights march.” Also around that same time, lesbian activists started receiving anonymous death threats over the phone. We demanded and received a mass meeting with the then-mayor and county District Attorney, where we demanded a statement condemning the violence. The mayor shilly-shallied around for an hour, until the DA, a quiet guy named Mike Ryan from an old Northampton family and someone with a strong passion for social justice, finally blurted out, “I’ll give you a statement.” Once he had cover from Mike, the mayor agreed as well. Eventually, someone was convicted for the harassing phone calls.

Pride Day kept growing from there, and after a few years, there were no more counterprotestors. In the 1990s, 10-12,000 was fairly typical, if I remember right. Then in the past few years it started to grow much larger.

The first several marches started at Bridge Street School and marched up Main Street to Pulaski Park. Later, as the crowds got too big for that little park, the direction was reversed. For many years now, it starts at a staging area in a big parking lot behind Main Street and heads down Main and Bridge to the 3-County Fairgrounds, which are enormous.

Part of the Elizabeth Warren contingent marches past the Northampton parking garage #Nohopride2019. Photo by Shel Horowitz.
Part of the Elizabeth Warren contingent marches past the Northampton parking garage #Nohopride2019. Photo by Shel Horowitz.

This year, it didn’t even fit into the staging area and spread into several surrounding streets. By the time it reached the Fairgrounds, gathering up so many of the bystanders along the way, it took over an hour and a half for the whole march to pass by.

The Springfield paper estimated 35,000, but I think they were counting the march as it left the staging area. At least 10,000 waited for us along the whole length of Main Street, watched the parade go by, and then joined in. The Gazette said 30-40,000, and I think that higher number is more accurate.

Back in the early 1980s, we were considered curiosities, even in liberal Northampton. Even as recently as 1991, the first publication in the Gazette of a same-sex wedding announcement sparked an outrageous article in the National Enquirer headlined “Lesbianville, USA.”

But for a decade now, the contingents have included dozens of school groups from kindergarten through college, the occasional daycare center, banks, churches and synagogues, real estate agencies, hospitals…every type of business you can think of. People come with their kids, same- or different-sex partners (as usual, I was there with my wife, D. Dina Friedman), grandparents, pets…and homemade or store-bought rainbow apparel.

The first person I saw that I knew this year was Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz, who was officiating a wedding on stage at the rally that followed the march. He didn’t just show up to do his bit, but marched with the rest of us. He posed for a picture but my camera didn’t cooperate. But I snapped this unposed one while he was talking to someone (possibly State Senator Jo Comerford—I couldn’t tell from the back). Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse was also in attendance, as was former Northampton Mayor Mary Clare Higgins. Holyoke City Councilor and staffer for Elizabeth Warren’s presidential run Jossie Valentín organized the Warren contingent.

Those first years were about anger, vulnerability, and claiming our right to be part of the community. Now, it’s a celebration. Much less activism and much more a great big day-long party with the march, the rally, and various dances and cultural events in the evening. The hotels, restaurants, and retail businesses downtown are packed.

This is how far we’ve come! From fringe to totally normal. The legalization of same-sex marriage was certainly a factor in normalizing the LGBT community, but acceptance was permeating through the local culture long before that. I’m convinced that when someone from a conservative culture sits on e.g. a PTA committee with a same-sex parent, and they both realize they want basically the same things for their kids and their community, those barriers break down.

I’m proud that Northampton has been in the vanguard of this movement (a movement I first got involved with in 1973, before I ever heard of Northampton). While I haven’t lived within city borders since 1998 when I moved across the river to Hadley, it’s still my community, I’m there several times a week, and I can see it from the hill behind my house.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Advertising, Branding, Consumer Issues, Copywriting, Demographics/Psychographics, Eco-friendly, Environment, Green Marketing, Innovation, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , ,

As the primary author of two books in the Guerrilla Marketing series (Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World and Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green) and a speaker at the recent Guerrilla Marketing Summit, I was very interested in how the digital marketing pioneer Hubspot views the whole Guerrilla Marketing concept and brand.

In their seven examples, I was particularly thrilled that they included UNICEF’s super-successful Dirty Water campaign.

Screenshot of a still from the Unicef "Dirty Water" video
Screenshot of a still from the UNICEF “Dirty Water” video

After all, my two Guerrilla books are the ones that extend the Guerrilla Marketing concepts to the worlds of social change of environmentalism. This was a bit of a gamble for UNICEF; there were obviously significant costs in everything from developing the branding to shipping the filthy water. I hope they’re replicating the campaign in other cities, and creating strong follow-up messaging targeted specifically to those touched by this campaign, to keep them donating into the future.

My definition of Guerrilla Marketing is a lot broader than Hubspot’s. To me, Guerrilla Marketing has three main parts:

  1. Being nimble in our thinking and actions, seizing opportunities quickly, including news tie-ins
  2. Going outside and beyond conventional thinking patterns–disrupting the mental flow to get noticed, to move people to action, but in ways that don’t feel obnoxiously intrusive
  3. Focusing not on how great your brand is (the mistake I see so many marketers make. I call it “we, we, we all the way home) but on the results: the benefits, the problems solved, the pain relieved, the wants and needs met or exceeded–whether for the individual customer or for the planet and the species that live on it.

Hubspot’s choice of the Bounty sculpture is a beautiful example.

Ideally, Guerrilla Marketing will be done at little cost, too. But, as the UNICEF and Grammy examples show, there are plenty of Guerrilla Marketing opportunities that aren’t necessarily cheap.

Let’s look at those two more closely, because they offer us very different lessons. It will take you exactly three minutes and 40 seconds to watch the two videos. Go ahead; I’ll wait.

UNICEF

This elaborate campaign involved creating a brand, bottling filthy brown water, and offering it on the streets of New York. The goal: to increase awareness that the clean, drinkable water we take for granted in most of the US (and the developed world generally) is unimaginable luxury for people at the margins in developing countries. Many have to drink filthy, disease-causing water, and many get very sick. The campaign encouraged people to use the money they currently spend on bottled water to provide clean water for those who don’t have it. Each dollar could supply a thirsty child for 40 days. The video documents the whole campaign, in a fast-paced three minutes.

I found this very effective. I love the way they were able to not just raise awareness, but funds. The negative branding is definitely a Guerrilla tactic, and the results are clearly positive. Bravo!

Grammy Ad

This was an expensive missed opportunity. Maybe it’s a generational thing, but this one really didn’t work for me. Great concept, but terrible execution. I want the protagonist be moved and touched by what he’s seeing, but he strolls through the talking posters, blithe and indifferent. He’s not even glancing at the posters! What’s going on in HIS head? We don’t even get a hint. Have  the talking portraits of Harry Potter and the constant animations of things people didn’t animate in the past made a talking poster no-longer-special? And while my wife frequently accuses me of ADD, I found that I hadn’t even processed and recognized one song before it switched after a few seconds to something else. (And OK, I confess, this was not music I’m familiar with anyway). Some of the problem was that the songs all sounded so similar and all seemed to have the exact same beat.

I also think the choice of having multiple copies of each poster was unfortunate. Yes, I recognize that’s a common way to display posters in urban environments. It has NEVER worked for me. I’ve studied some of the advertising masters like David Ogilvy, and they taught me the importance of white space: of having one central object (or person, animal, tree…) able to stand out from what’s around it, because of that empty space around it. If I were buying billboards, instead of, say, 9 medium-sized repeated pictures, I’d use the space for one much larger version of the image. I’d use that white space and not add to the clutter.

Imagine walking down the street and seeing a 20-foot billboard suddenly start to sing with its one and only mouth! Imagine hearing snippets of three or four songs that each have a clear identity, in a true medley, each sung by one giant poster of an artist you recognize instantly. Would you be as blase as the protagonist? I doubt it!

So maybe the commercial would need a full minute instead of 39 seconds. That’s OK. In print copywriting, it’s perfectly OK to take as much time as you need to tell the story; I’ve seen emails with links to 40-page sales letters. Even in broadcast, even though airtime is expensive, we’ve seen many successful commercials that ran an hour (they’re called infomercials and they run on shopping channels). The UNICEF video was three entire minutes and I watched without multitasking, because I was interested both in their message and how they promoted it. If you can’t get it done in less than a minute, either buy more airtime, or script a commercial that CAN get it done in the time you bought.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

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Everyone should read this article on why Democrats should abandon wimpy centrism
Everyone should read this article on why Democrats should abandon wimpy centrism. The link is in the first paragraph of the post.

Here’s an essay I wish I had written: Why do Democrats love limp dishrag centrism?, by Ryan Cooper. It eloquently expresses a lot of things I’ve been saying for a long time. Spend a few minutes reading it, then please come back here for some deeper context and a longer, more historical perspective. The link will open a new tab, so this one will still be up on a computer screen (not true from a phone, but you should have a Back arrow)

Consider these tidbits:

  1. The last non-incumbent Democrat who won the presidency as an obvious centrist without a third-party candidate siphoning off significant votes from the Republicans was Jimmy Carter; the one before was John F. Kennedy. Bill
    Clinton had help from the third-party campaign of H. Ross Perot. Obama ran on a platform of “Hope and Change” that looked pretty progressive if you didn’t look too closely. LBJ was already an incumbent in 1964, and withdrew his bid in 1968 in the face of progressive challenges from Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy. Centrists Carter (running for re-election in 1980), Mondale (1984), and Dukakis  (1988) lost honestly. Gore (2000), Kerry (2004), and Hillary Clinton (2016) chose not to seriously contest highly suspicious election results.
  2. Bernie Sanders, an open progressive, won 23 primaries against Hillary Clinton, a centrist. In the swing states, where a person’s vote actually matters, he took Wisconsin, Michigan, Colorado, and New Hampshire–while her primary strength included many die-hard Republican states she had little or no chance of winning in the general election. Yet she took even swing states for granted, not even bothering to make a single appearance in Wisconsin between being nominated and the general election despite losing the primary by an astonishing 13.5 points. In Michigan, her campaign again took the state for granted and refused to respond to field organizers’ urgent calls for help–foregoing on-the-ground canvassing and lit drops as well as any significant TV advertising presence. As Cooper notes, she was clueless about the impact of Obama’s economic policies (bail out the banks, but hang working-class homeowners facing foreclosure out to dry) on working families in Rust Belt states. Sanders’ call for change was replaced by a sense of entitlement embodied in that “dishrag” slogan “I’m with her.” And Obama’s failure to show how he was helping working-class families even when Gallup named good jobs the number one issue in the 2012 Presidential election definitely hurt the Hillary campaign; she was seen as an out-of-touch Washington elitist.
  3. It is true that the only progressive nominated in my lifetime to head the ticket of a major party, George McGovern, was badly defeated. However, there were a number of factors besides his agenda: He threw his running mate under the bus after saying he’d stand behind him “1000 percent.” He was an incredibly uncharismatic campaigner (at age 15, I witnessed one of his pathetic rallies). And he couldn’t count on his greatest constituency–antiwar youth–because 18-to-20 year olds didn’t get the right to vote until 1971. And, just like Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, and Bernie Sanders in more recent years, he got basically no support–let’s state the truth: active hostility–from the Democratic Party establishment. As that same NPR piece that reported on McGovern’s VP fiasco notes,

The post-election reforms instituted by Sen. George McGovern (D-SD) made sure that, starting in 1972, delegates would be decided in primaries, not backroom deals, and that primaries — not smoke-filled rooms — would determine the nominee. The fact that McGovern, a strong opponent of the war, would win the nomination — helping, along the way, to curtail the power of such longtime Democratic leaders/bosses like Daley — was one reason why many in the Democratic Old Guard refused to unite behind their presidential candidate.

Interestingly, that same NPR link also shows that people respect and support candidates who actually have the guts to stand up and fight. In response to a reader question lower on the page, writer Ken Rudin points out that only one of the 126 Democrats who voted against the Iraq war in 2002 lost that November. I know that in my own district, I felt that his vote against the war was important enough that I voted for Richie Neal for the first and only time. My town has since been moved to an adjoining district, but I’m actively supporting and advising Neal’s progressive opponent, Tahirah Amatul-Wadud.

The Democrats need to realize that they are sabotaging themselves when the sabotage progressive candidates and refuse to fight against the continuous Republican encroachments. They need to stand up and fight back when the Mitch McConnells of this country undermine the people’s agenda. They need to give active support to candidates who inspire, and can win. The same old same old doesn’t cut it anymore. Cooper’s “dishrag centrists” won’t win a majority in Congress, and those elected won’t be a force for change. They need to recognize that even many of the votes for DT were votes for change, and that they could harness that momentum for a progressive agenda.

Poll after poll shows that like the rest of the world, America wants things like good jobs with good benefits, affordable healthcare and education, and a clean environment. Yet so many elected Democrats are too timid to go after these things–even though European citizens have enjoyed them for decades. And that’s why centrist Democrats keep losing elections. It reminds me of the way Michael Dukakis let George H.W. Bush back him into the corner by refusing to defend his liberal credentials (I’m still proud of this piece I wrote a year and a half ago).

It’s time to change that. Run good candidates. Take back the House and maybe the Senate. Push the people’s agenda. Call out the Republican traitors, saboteurs, and liars; oppose them at every turn. And run someone who has skills, experiences, AND an agenda to lead the ticket in 2020. Fighting the slide toward fascism is not enough. The Dems must be for a positive agenda as well as against their opponent’s agenda. This a point even made in this New York Times “report” on DT’s hypothetical 2020 re-election. While the author’s intent was to warn against a slate that’s too progressive, to me the message to the Democrats is not that at all, but to make sure that any progressive slate has a powerful agenda that helps ordinary people.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

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Read this brief article. Then come back and let’s talk about it. This tab will still be open in your browser.

I found it a fascinating yet quick deep-dive into the liberal versus conservative mindset. Sharing this article on Facebook (where I happened to see it), Nathan Mackenzie Brown, founder of Really American  commented,

A must read if you care about politics. FYI, it’s also very short.

My take away from this is, if you are liberal, don’t fear monger, even about Trump.

The authors’ central point is that when we feel personally secure, we tilt more liberal, and when we feel, threatened we lurch rightward. Not exactly rocket science, I know. But what they bring to the table is the idea that if we address the security concerns, the political tilt is actually reversible.

This is something that DT innately understands—the power of fear. He built his base by demonizing various Others. My capitalized O is intentional; I’m talking about whole groups and classes of people (Mexicans, Muslims, the press, etc..

It’s very rare to run a successful US national campaign rooted in fear. Reagan (“morning in America”) and Obama (“hope” and “change”) both won on optimism. Laughable as it seemed at the time and even more so in retrospect, Bush II ran as a “compassionate conservative.” Even Nixon ran on his “secret plan to end the war.”

But DT mixed a very pessimistic worldview, based largely in “they’re out to get us” with a soaringly optimistic slogan (MAGA). His opponent was a centrist with close ties to the groups DT was calling out.

Hillary Clinton also failed to consistently express strong political views, and tried to harness competing slogans at cross purposes: the wimpy and ineffectual “I’m with her” and the arrogant “it’s her turn”/”it’s our turn” both reinforcing the perception that she was an in-group, establishment figure out of touch with the public, while “stronger together” was somewhat optimistic but not really rooted in vision, and seemed a reaction to DT’s divisiveness.

George Lakoff and others have written that conservative politics are often rooted in an authoritarian-father mindset, while liberals are the products of permissive-parenting thinking. I have a number of issues with Lakoff’s approach, though I see much truth in it.

Left and Right come together at both the Libertarian (Freedom) and Authoritarian (Control) ends of the spectrum
Left and Right come together at libertarian AND authoritarian (copyright 2018, Shel Horowitz, all rights reserved)

But let me add one of my own long-held theories: Beyond the Left-Right axis, we have to look at another set of operating principles: where someone stands on freedom vs. control. So at the top end of this graphic (which is copyright 2018 by Shel Horowitz, as is the entire post—please contact me if you’d like to reprint), progressive environmentalists and Tea Partiers concerned about wasteful government spending join together in the Green Scissors coalition.

At the bottom end, I don’t see a lot of difference between communists and fascists other than their idea of who should control the means of production. They are both totally willing to rough up or even (historically) mass-murder their opponents, seize or maintain power by force of arms, and crush dissent. Was Hitler really so different from Stalin?

Let’s get some good discussion going on this. Comment below.

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By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Branding, Copywriting, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Ethics in Government, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, Politics, propaganda, Psychology Tagged with , , , ,

Guest post from former Florida Congressman Alan Grayson. This originally ran in his email newsletter. I’m including all his original links and reprinting with his permission. I especially love this quote: “if you are a useless lout who has done nothing good for The People, but you still aspire to public office, then negative ads really are your only alternative.”

It’s worth noting not only how badly negative ads position our perception of politics (“ah, they’re all crooks,” etc.)—but also the growth of some promising alternatives to the negativity. One great example is ranked choice voting. Experts including Voter Choice Massachusetts explain that ranked choice (also called instant runoff) provides incentives NOT to use negative ads.

—Shel Horowitz

Former Florida representative Alan Grayson
Former Florida representative Alan Grayson

My son is doing a science experiment on politics and negative advertising.  And the results are in.  But first, a few words on negative ads.

They are pervasive.  Back in 2012, virtually every dollar that the national parties spent on Congressional campaigns was spent on negative advertising.  (Expenditures for and against candidates are reported to the FEC separately, so you can look it up.)  It’s gotten a little better since then, but more than 90% of party and PAC advertising remains negative.
Belief in negative advertising is also pervasive.  I can’t think of a single political leader or political consultant who would tell you that “positives” are more effective than “negatives.”  We had an interesting example of this a few months ago.  When GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell tried to elevate Luther Strange above Roy Moore and Mo Brooks in the Alabama Senate GOP Primary, he didn’t say anything good about Strange (apparently, a hopeless task).  Instead, McConnell dumped $7 million of party money going negative on Moore and Brooks, which backfired when Moore got the GOP nomination.  (And the rest . . . is history.)
Which proves that if you are a useless lout who has done nothing good for The People, but you still aspire to public office, then negative ads really are your only alternative.
So anyway, my son Stone, a 7th grader, came up with the idea that for his science project, he would try to measure the effectiveness of positive and negative ads.  (He really came up with this himself.  Smart kid.)
He created four positive ad posters for candidate Johnson, with suitable imagery:
JOHNSON FOR CLEAN AIR AND WATER!
JOHNSON STANDS FOR EQUALITY!
JOHNSON WILL IMPROVE EDUCATION!
JOHNSON WILL RAISE YOUR SALARY!
Each ended with the tag line “Vote for Johnson.”
Then he came up with four negative ad posters for Johnson’s opponent, Smith.  They read this way:
JOHNSON IS A CROOK!
JOHNSON WILL RUIN THE ECONOMY!
JOHNSON WILL RAISE TAXES!
And the inevitable:
JOHNSON IS A COMMIE!  (featuring a picture of Marx, Lenin and Mao).
Each ended with the tag line “Vote for Smith.”
So the 7th graders saw the posters, and voted as follows:
Johnson 19
Smith 12
When my son told me the results, I felt an enormous sense of relief.  I really wanted Johnson to win, and not just because he’s a Commie.  No, I wanted Johnson to win because his positive ads are an effort to convey to the voters the enormous power that we all have.  What power?  The power to make the world a better place, by making better rules for everyone.
That’s why I do it, anyway.
You can look at these results and feel a renewed faith in humanity.  Or if not all humanity, at least seventh-graders.
Courage,
Alan Grayson
“I’ve got The Power.”
 – Snap!, “I’ve got The Power” (1990).

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Business-general, Consumer Issues, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Entrepreneurship, Ethics in Government, General Commentary, Innovation, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, People Helping People, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Technology, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Under the guise of protecting small business from frivolous lawsuits, the House of Representatives just gutted the Americans With Disabilities Act—a major piece of civil rights legislation signed by George H.W. Bush. I have to say, I’m on a LOT of small business discussion boards, and I haven’t heard any business owners screaming about hardship. Small businesses in pre-ADA buildings are exempt unless they do major renovations.

Kangaroo electric wheelchair car—One way to rethink transportation for wheelchair users
One way to rethink transportation for wheelchair users

It’s up to us to make sure the Senate doesn’t follow along. Contact your Senators and let them know this is a vote where you will hold them accountable. And if your Rep was one who voted Aye, give them a piece of your mind too.

Of course, we’ll be tempted to argue on the basis of compassion. But remember who we’re dealing with here. These people have a long history of NOT acting out of compassion, often of doing the opposite. So compassion arguments “ain’t gonna cut it.” We have to get to them on the things they will listen to: costs to taxpayers, personal hardship to them, and of course, voting and campaigning for and donating to their opponents.

For 15 years, I’ve been making the dollars-and-sense business case for going green and building social entrepreneurship into business, which means I have some experience discussing issues with people who are predisposed to oppose my position. So let me offer some talking points I think they’ll actually listen to:

  1. Don’t Waste My Tax Dollars: How dare you make it harder for productive citizens to work, just because they have disabilities. If you think I want my tax dollars squandered on welfare payments to people who could have had a job until you made it impossible to get to work, you’d better think again.
  2. Don’t Hurt the Economy by Hurting Disabled People: For new construction, it’s really easy to design in ADA compliance from the ground up. By allowing builders to take shortcuts because you took away the teeth of this legislation, you’re encouraging them to stop designing in ramps and wider doorways, setting aside parking, making elevators disabled-friendly, etc have you noticed how many people with disabilities who in pre-ADA days had to sit home and be a burden have gone on to start job-creating companies making our economy better (like the personal-transportation vehicle for wheelchair users in the photo—designed by a wheelchair-using Texas woman)? There’s even an organization of disabled business owners that was named one of President George H.W. Bush’s 1000 Points of Light. Do you really want the blame for squashing that on your shoulders?
  3. Protect Our Veterans: Do you realize that veterans have much higher disability rates than the general population (due to war wounds), and that many have a hard time finding work and frequently start their own businesses? Thus, many of these job creators are veterans.You are hurting the people who served our country and defended our freedom.
  4. Pointless Government Meddling: The ADA has been around since 1990. Most public buildings are already accessible. This is bringing in the government to break a system that’s working just fine right now, and that has enabled millions of people to be productive members of society. And if buildings are allowed to come online without meeting current ADA code, it will be expensive to retrofit them later, when (not if) this weakening of the law is repealed.
  5. Personal Inconvenience to the Senator (this one takes a wee bit of research): I noticed that [name a family member of theirs with a disability] uses a wheelchair [cane, walker, seeing-eye dog, whatever]. Do you really want to be called away from important Senate business every time [name]has to go to the bank? How do you think I’m going to feel as a [business owner, manager, productive employee supporting my family] if I have to leave work to help my Aunt Mary do things she could have done for herself until you put obstacles in her way? And what’s going to happen to you, 20 years from now, when you may not be able-bodied yourself?
  6. Vote No or You’ll Organize to Defeat the Senator During the Next Election: Don’t just pledge to vote for your Senator’s opponent. Say you’ll be willing to campaign and fundraise for someone who understands that disability rights are important. If you’ve voted, donated, or  volunteered for your Senator in the past, be sure to let them know.

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By Posted on Posted in Branding, Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Demographics/Psychographics, Psychology, Socially Responsible Investing Tagged with , , ,

For decades, I’ve told anyone who’d listen that doing the right thing for the planet and its inhabitants can be the core of a highly successful business strategy. In my latest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, I cite dozens of studies that show this.

Now, AdWeek reports on a powerful new study that reinforces this key truth. 65 percent of respondents—2 out of every 3 consumers—rate the need for brands to “take a stand on social issues” either very or somewhat important, and especially so when discussing brands’ social media presence. Of the self-identified “liberals,” the number went up to 78 percent, or nearly four out of five.

Concern for the planet—and the living things that ride "Spaceship Earth"—is good for business (picture of Earth and sun)
Concern for the planet—and the living things that ride “Spaceship Earth”—is good for business
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