If you’re reading this you are literate. You can call me Captain Obvious.

No, if you’re reading this you’re probably someone who reads progressive writing because it resonates with you. You probably react to much of the traditional media’s output with a sneer of disgust and then return happily to your amateur blogger rantings and think to yourself, “Why isn’t this stuff being covered?”

Well, as Jane Hamsher, Glenn Greenwald, and David Sirota point out, progressive bloggers are proving the economic viability of liberal writers as book sales driven by online advocates succeed in getting important messages into print and onto bookshelves across the country.

And let’s not forget the Roots Project, partly organized by Matt, which is getting these messages into the halls of Congress.

I’ve compiled some very powerful quotes below, but the underlying message is that we have the power to make our ideas part of the public debate (as distinct from the blog debate) by buying these books, blogging about them, and sending copies of them to your representatives.

David Sirota writes:

The bottom line, though, is clear: supporting, promoting and amplifying progressive voices and helping them become commercially viable in a competitive market is critical to taking our movement to the next level. Those committed citizens who support these voices by buying and reading their books, spreading the word about their documentaries, informing neighbors about the issues being pushed — they are helping build a long-term movement for the future, and that is absolutely critical to the vast majority of Americans who want their government back.

He quotes Jennifer Nix of Working Assets:

At a time when the right is insisting that the left has no ideas and mainstream media seem unwilling or unable to cover progressive ideas intelligently, we must create our own vehicles to carry our ideas to the American public. And we must build upon what we know is possible when the blogs work together. Progressive membership groups should join in, and help to lift up new voices and ideas. It’s not about just selling books. It’s about making our ideas successful in the marketplace, so that more Americans can hear about them.

Greenwald agrees:

Many on the Left seem to have some sort of instinctive aversion to promoting products which are for sale or ventures which generate profit, as though such activities are impure or even wrong. The Right long ago realized that the economic success of its political products translates into all sorts of critical benefits — from creating the perception that its ideas are popular and credible to ensuring its advocates widespread media access. That’s why they expend so much effort to ensure the success of their books — even going so far as to have organizations purchase them in large bulk and then sell them at a huge loss — and it’s also why it is so important to them to disparage the economic viability of liberal media projects. For better or worse, the impact which a political product can have is a function of its economic viability.

In addition to my book, there have been several books that have enjoyed surprising commercial success — including David Sirota’s Hostile Takeover and Eric Boehlert’s Lapdogs — which critics of the administration ought to be excited to promote and push into the mainstream media. The more the ideas and arguments advanced by those books are heard, the better. Books develop ideas and have the power to persuade and shape political debates in a way few other things can.

Jane Hamsher:

One of the things people have been mentioning as we travel across the country is the need to provide a counterbalance for the wingnut welfare that interjects the abject ravings of eliminationist fantasists and racist mall rats into the national discourse far in excess of anything they’d ever achieve by virtue of their own merits. It’s the reason we started the FDL Book Salon. We’ve got to show up for our own.

So if you’re out there reading an important book or article, blog about it.

I’m reading (too much):

At Canaan’s Edge by Taylor Branch, a book about King’s pursuit of a voting rights bill.

Don’t Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff, which is about framing public debate.

Hostile Takeover by David Sirota, because he’s right.

My goal is to finish ‘em all this long weekend. Yipee for us literate folk.


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