There's enormous progressive activism and, more often than not, success at the grassroots level - everything from living wage campaigns to efforts to finance our elections are having terrific success.

Like NASCAR race drivers or PGA golfers, why not require each of the [US presidential] candidates to cover their clothing, briefcases and staff with the logo patches of their corporate sponsors?

The good news, though, is that I find in my political travels that people, as regular citizens, are more interested than ever in getting together and having discussions. They want to hear about other viewpoints that differ entirely from what the administration is putting out.

It's hard to believe President George Bush gave a speech in New Orleans about disaster recovery and failed to mention the word 'farm' or the word 'rural.'

You can't do progressive government from the inside. You have to rally those outsiders and make them a force.

Part of the failure of the corporate media is that they don't dig out stories anymore. They are looking down from the top floors. Media work used to be something that was down on the ground level. Now they are looking out of the windows in the top suites, and they don't know what's going on out there. And then there are the corporate owners who don't want this stuff reported because if one town learns that the next town has defeated Wal-Mart or stopped sweatshop goods, then other towns are going to want to do the same thing.

Politics ought to be fun. It shouldn't be just boring meetings.