When a caller asked what we could do, Thom had plenty of suggestions.
Thom gave advice to Justin from Nebraska, 30 May 2006
[Thom Hartmann]: Justin, in Lincoln Nebraska. Hey Justin, what's up?
[Justin from Nebraska]: Hey, Thom. I'm just pretty much convinced that the only thing that I can do is go door to door with, like, the Thom Hartmann newsletter, or something.
[Thom Hartmann]: Find a good political candidate who's saying the same things I am, Justin, and go door to door for them.
[Justin from Nebraska]: Well here in Nebraska, I mean.
[Thom Hartmann]: There are progressives in Nebraska.
[Justin from Nebraska]: There really isn't any good political candidates.
[Thom Hartmann]: In that case then show up for the Democratic Party meeting or the Green Party meeting or, you know.
[Justin from Nebraska]: I wish I could just take the transcripts from your show and just go door to door and hand them out.
[Thom Hartmann]: Yeah, well. There are archives over at whiterosesociety.org and we have them on our web site and you're welcome to point people out to them, but that's not really what you called about was it, Justin?
[Justin from Nebraska]: Well, actually it was, because I'm tired of arguing with conservatives and just being called a liar and then not having, you know, everything right there in front of me to show them.
[Thom Hartmann]: Yeah. Well, there's some excellent web sites to back up the stuff. Let me just quickly commend to you a couple of them. Think Progress.org is a great blog with the news of the day. Media Matters.org a great web site. Make Them Accountable.com ... Carolyn Kay's web site. BuzzFlash.com. OpEdNews.com. CommonDreams.org. These are all extraordinary web sites. TruthOut.org. AlterNet.org. There really isn't a shortage of good progressive blogs and web sites and news sources that can give you the ammunition that you need to win the water cooler wars, Justin.
[Justin from Nebraska]: Well, do you know of a newsletter that I can, like, print off and just go door to door and hand out?
[Thom Hartmann]: Well, what you may find if you just, for example, just take Common Dreams.org. Just start reading every day. They publish 8 or 10 articles, 8 or 10 op eds every day. And I would guess that pretty much once or twice a day there's something on there that I think is cool enough that I want to share with my listeners or that I would, you know, want to go door to door with, as it were. The problem is if you do it too much, I mean, you know, your neighbors are not going to take kindly to your showing up on their doorstop too often but the equivalent of going door to door is forwarding things, forwarding messages to friends. I mean, it's just, you know, step by step. I really applaud the idea that, you know, particularly following on our last guest [Akaya Windwood] who talked about getting out there and doing what you, you know, what motivates you, that you want to do something. Though I would strongly suggest that you show up at the Democratic Party, at your local Democratic Party meeting.
[Justin from Nebraska]: OK.
[Thom Hartmann]: Can you do that?
[Justin from Nebraska]: Yeah, I can. Well, I just hope that everybody in the states where the elections are a little bit closer, I hope people there do go door to door.
[Thom Hartmann]: Yeah, well, and I do too, Justin. But check out there in Nebraska, check out your local Democratic Party in Lincoln and city wide, county wide, whatever it may be. Go to one of their meetings and then, you know, give us a call back in a month or so after you've done it and let us know what you discover.
[Justin from Nebraska]: OK.
[Thom Hartmann]: Would you?
[Justin from Nebraska]: Yep.
[Thom Hartmann]: Great. Thanks a lot. I'd love to hear back on that and the follow-up on that cause occasionally we have people who really discover some really cool stuff and sometimes they discover some really grim stuff and they decide to stick around and make some real significant changes.
